


Great Minds Think Alike

by HenriettaDarlington, Sombies



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Adultery, Age Difference, Bulimia, Courtroom Drama, Disordered Eating, Domestic Violence, F/M, Flashbacks, Gun Violence, Misogyny, Psychological Horror, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:53:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenriettaDarlington/pseuds/HenriettaDarlington, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sombies/pseuds/Sombies
Summary: Strange things came to light at Esplin 9466's trial. The public found out about permalites, the hork bajir genocide, and Atlantis for the first time. Still, it was front page news when people learned Visser Ten -- his little secretary -- never even had a yeerk in her head.
Relationships: Alloran-Semitur-Corrass/Original Character(s), Visser Three | Esplin 9466/Original Character(s), Visser Three | Esplin 9466/Original Character(s)/Alloran-Semitur-Corrass
Comments: 52
Kudos: 57





	1. The Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> New year, new fic! This is my first fic where I've pre-written the whole thing before posting. I'll be updating Wednesdays! This covered the first eight books, but depending on how it vibes I'll probably do more. However, this is a complete arc in its own right, so!
> 
> A big thank you to the kind Solomoon, who extended permission to use the name Essa for Tom's second yeerk.

It’s a common misconception, but witnesses aren’t allowed to sit in the courtroom. 

If someone is testifying, they’re only supposed to talk about what they personally saw. Sitting in the gallery watching pictures of severed heads flash up on a projector or listening to medical experts talk about forty-seven lethal injuries would bias them against the defendant. Suddenly, their testimony isn’t so reliable. Maybe they want to make sure that sicko doesn’t walk out of there in anything aside from leg irons. Or, of course, they might think their old buddy could never have been capable of doing such a terrible thing. No one’s being accused of perjury, but better safe than sorry.

One way or another, it compromised witnesses. They weren’t even supposed to watch news reports on the case, much less hear every detail firsthand. 

Instead of scoping out at the jury, witnesses spend however many days or weeks or months they’re under oath killing time in a place called a witness waiting room. It’s common, particularly in real circuses of trials, for there to be at least two. Whichever one someone is stuck in depends on whether they’re there on behalf of the defense or the prosecution. 

Things were set up that way at the Hague. Makes sense. War crimes trials weren’t something anyone wanted to botch.

In a rush to get her away from the clamor of camera shutters shoved in her face, security guided Gina to the wrong room.

She stood five foot eight inches in red-bottom ballerina flats, taller than the protection officer standing beside her in the doorway. She was dressed in lavender and cream and silk and looked like she was auditioning for ‘Days Of Our Lives’. 

Tom knew she was a hell of an actress, but she’d stick out like a taxxon in a middle school swim meet when she joined the sea of black suits in the courtroom. 

“Visser Ten.” Tom didn’t get up from his leather coach. He’d gotten in through a side entrance before the place officially opened to beat the news crews and spent the last hour-forty reading his GED practice manual. The room was small. It was the same shade of beige as a physical therapist’s waiting room. The vents were blowing so hard the hair on his arm stood on end even though it was sweltering outside.

“You don’t have to call me that. You can just call me Ms. Arroyo. ” The Yeerk Empire formally stripped her of the title. Even they didn’t want to touch that mess with a ten light year pole. “Tell me, is your brother coming?”

Tom stuck his pencil in his book to mark his place. “He’ll be here eventually. I’m not under house arrest, so it’s not like I’m there to babysit him.”

It was a little low to point out Gina wasn’t allowed outside without a police escort. Supposedly it was for her own safety. Meanwhile ex-controllers - even voluntary - had been dropped back into the general population with nothing more than a slap on the back for luck. 

He didn’t feel bad. It’s not like she had to wear an ankle bracelet. She deserved one.

She gave him the same icy look she used to give any Sub-Visser unlucky enough to cross her path. It always made Tom want to stick his tongue out. Well, Tom wanted to flip her off. Essa 412 wanted to stick his tongue out. One thing they could agree on was that they’d be glad when she transferred out to her own invasion. “I would just think _you_ would be trying to lend him some support. This must be so difficult for him.” 

Her unspoken implication was obvious. In the aftermath of a war this massive there weren’t enough resources to put every foot soldier or cafeteria worker on trial. However, high profile criminals were guaranteed their day in court. It looked good for the cameras. Voluntaries got it worst. Six accused voluntary hosts were shot in the street in as many months. Yeerks who lived really loved to rake their ex-hosts through the mud. Some of them said they were just trying to cast reasonable doubt, but Tom knew that was bull.

Tom owed Jake even more than he already did for making sure there was nothing left of the Earth Invasion’s Chief Security Officer to parade in front of a jury. He could just as easily been the one getting screamed at in a grocery store or picking glass out of the carpet whens someone chucked a brick through his window. 

Except for the fact that he wasn’t a dirty collaborator.

“Like I said, my brother managed to end an intergalactic war. He doesn’t need me breathing down his neck reminding him to set an alarm clock. I wanted to beat the rush hour traffic here. He doesn’t have to worry about that. But I’ll make sure to let him know you asked about him.” It might give them something to laugh about, if Jake still had it in him to after dealing with lawyers out for his blood.

“Please do. I wish all the Animorphs the best. I owe them everything, after all.” Just like she told the press reporters this morning. She was always good sound-bite material. At least until the day’s proceedings were done and everything presented could be put the six o’clock news. She sat down in a chair with cracked leather. For the International War Crimes Tribunal, Tom would think they could spring for something nicer. Her face scrunched while she tried to get comfortable. “Are you here to talk about your time as his security chief?”

“Yeah.” Tom did not want to make small talk with her, even if she was up to chat. There were plenty he could say to shut this down. Still, sitting in silence made him fidget even after a year of having his body back. “How about you? What are you going to say?”

That was a stupid question. Everyone knew what she was going up there to testify about. Plus, they weren’t supposed to be talking about the trial to anybody.

“Oh, I’m going to say all sorts of things. Whatever’s covered in my plea bargain, you know?” She laughed, “A little of this and a little of that. Boring paper pusher stuff and the real nasty things. I don’t think anyone really cares about Visser Ten the Invader. They have plenty of other ex-Vissers they could cross examine.”

He was one of them. 

“The prosecutor says I’m going to tell everyone how it’s all his fault. It’s so tough to pin blame when yeerks go on trial. I’m the only eyewitness to a lot of things.”

Not a reliable one. Tom picked at his suit collar.

The room was quiet besides the woosh of the air conditioner. 

The door opened again. Both of them twitched forward. They were touchy as a beat up bug fighter. There was no reason to think they were going to get called yet. It was the first day of the trial. A jury hadn’t even been selected yet. 

Now, the protection officer shepherded two people. 

Eva wore a khaki pantsuit with crisply pressed pleats. Her hair was in a shoulder length, chestnut, and shiny. It did a bad job distracting from the bundle of raised scars -- shinier than her hair -- starting behind her ear and travelling down her jaw into the collar of her shirt.

Marco had his suit jacket unbuttoned. Tom didn’t know the brand, but he knew Marco. Definitely expensive. He was deep in a one sided conversation with Eva. He was complaining about how they should have gotten a car from tinted windows. He had to wave at photographers the entire drive. His wrist hurt. 

They both carried steaming coffee cups.

“Let me tell you, if I stopped for even a second you would have seen it tonight splashed on the cover of the Enquirer.” He made finger quotes. “‘Marco Brooding at Visser One’s Trial!’ Everyone would be saying I know some top secret info about how the war’s about to restart-” 

Eva realized they were not entering an empty room before Marco did, but only by a second. It was easy to see his mother in him when they leveled Tom and Gina with the same calculating look.

“Hey, Reggie,” Marco favored Gina with an upward nod, “I haven’t seen you since the Hork-Bajir Valley. How’s the family?”


	2. The Invasion

**Please state your name for the record.**

His name was Jacob Berenson and his tie was so tight it was cutting off air. Actually, it was his dad’s. He bought his own three years ago when he received the Presidential Medal of Honor, but last night his dog Homer ran off with it. Jake had no clue where is was now.

Anyway.

Nobody asked Jake about anything that made him look bad. Visser One’s lawyer tried, but, but the judge made it very clear that Jake was not the one on trial. Never mind that he couldn’t avoid some of the worst things he did, because they happened in tandem with Visser One’s crimes. Everyone pretended he wasn’t incriminating himself.

Still, he shifted in his chair whenever the defense attorney looked at him. It was wooden, with one leg was shorter than the rest. It clacked every time it’s short leg hit the tile.

The prosecutors called him a war hero. He smiled even though it made him cringe. He plucked seam of his pants. His mom always told him not to. He kept wearing holes in them.

Right now, he needed to explain how the Animorphs first joined the war. He didn’t have Marco’s humor or Cassie’s grace, but Jake could tell this story. It wasn’t hard.

He still dreamed about it.

Other than Jake and his friends, there weren’t many people left who witnessed what Visser One did to Prince Elfangor. Visser One was there, obviously. A week later he found out Tom and Vice Principal Chapman were there. Who knew about anybody else? Definitely not Jake. In the moment, Jake wasn’t trying to put faces to voices. He barely heard them. Elfangor’s voice was in his head. He reassured them all right until the end. 

After Elfangor died -- was killed -- all Jake cared about was running fast enough and making enough noise that those aliens went after him. Better Jake than Cassie, Marco, or Tobias. He wasn’t worried about Rachel. Back at thirteen she ran just as fast as he did.

Anyway.

He didn’t start recognizing people until later. He started noticing people from school when he was spying on that first Sharing meeting in dog morph.

He saw the eighth grader he passed in the hall and the guy from the basketball team he sat with at lunch. They were full members. His lab partner was over there too. At least he thought so. 

Looking back after three years it all seemed pale and washed out compared to what happened next.

Tom said that Jake’s only two options were a yeerk or a dracon beam to the head. No, Tom’s yeerk said that. People needed to understand, Jake was only a few days into being an Animorph. They didn’t even have the nickname yet. The difference between host and yeerk didn’t mean much to a thirteen year old boy hearing his brother talk about killing him.

If he tried, Jake remembered her being there too. If only because she called him out.

“Did somebody bring their dog? California has leash laws. If we get a fine they won’t let us host parties here anymore.”

His ears pinned to his skull. He tried staying away from full members, but he drifted a little too close. He avoided looking at them, but peered from the corner of his eye.  
She was a tall girl with curly blonde hair in a ponytail. She looked a little older than Tom. Maybe a college co-ed? She stood near the edge of the circle, resting a clipboard on her hip. She addressed her question to an upperclassmen Jake knew distantly from gym class. 

“Some people bring them. It helps draw little kids into meetings. It doesn’t have a collar though.” The boy shrugged. “Maybe it’s rabid.”

She frowned. “No, it’s really clean. It has to be someone’s pet. I hope it didn’t get loose.”

“Why do you care?”

She bristled. “If someone from the Sharing brought it, their host’s family will be pissed if they come home without their dog.” She jerked forward, staring straight ahead. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Mr. Chapman.”

So she was definitely a college girl. No one in the school district called him anything other than Vice Principal.

She slipped his mind after that. All the stuff with his brother was too much of a gut punch to think about some girl -- some yeerk -- he didn’t know. 

Then he nearly got caught and had a lot bigger problems.

Later at the pool, she grabbed his attention. Only for a second, sure, but it stood out even with his tiger instincts telling him to start mauling people.

Jake saw -- with tiger eyes fast enough to notice things he’d miss otherwise -- her clasp her hand around Visser Three’s arm. 

He was still Visser Three back then before they managed to kill the first Visser One. 

The girl looked at them all. He eyes flicking the way Cassie’s had the first time Jake saw her in horse morph, big and shiny and nervous. Visser Three must have said something to her. She recoiled from him like he just punched her in the nose. She fell back further when he stepped out and began to morph. The other controllers surged forward to fight. 

She was nowhere to be found.

Actually.

There was one more thing. He and Tobias talked a few days later. It was a really awkward conversation, but Jake felt he had to ask Tobias if he noticed anything worth reporting on when he was stuck in the rafters. He sat there for six hours. Tobias kept his eyes open looking for a way out, but it turned out he did notice something. 

Visser Three didn’t emerge from his office for a couple hours. When he finally did, that girl was with him again. Tobias noticed her too. 

Hawk eyes, you know? 

Visser Three was still killing mad. Tobias said it felt like when they were in the construction site. The air bubbled with hate. 

He dragged this girl -- who of course couldn’t keep up with an Andalite -- by her hair. He only slowed down to let her walk when he realized people were gaping at him.

**Objection! Hearsay, your honor.**

**Sustained.**

* * *

Her name was Regina Valentina Arroyo. She was twenty two. She was from California, but only moved into Santa Barbara proper for college. She lived in the burbs before then.

She was only eighteen when she met Visser One. It was spring of 1997. She was a freshman in college, about to be a rising sophomore. She’d been a controller for three months. She turned nineteen that summer.

Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul died that fall. 

According to eyewitness testimony it was beyond gruesome. Getting eaten alive must be a horrible way to go out and Visser Three was a messy eater on his good days. People in attendance started taking sedatives to sleep at night. Yeerk doctors said his thought-speak scream kept ringing in their head weeks after he died. 

Visser Three bragged about how helpless he rendered Elfangor. His tailblade was, quote unquote, womanly and worthless compared to the Visser’s morph. Like a toothpick lobbed at a suit of armor.

Regina wasn’t invited. She only knew specifics secondhand from water cooler gossip. Visser Three didn’t want her under hoof when he was having a boys night. She was a teenager whose athletic high point was when she was a middling high school cheer captain. 

Even during that brief time when a yeerk twisted bubblegum knots around her brain stem, Gina received zero combat training. She strictly worked for recruitment. She was a pretty face to smile at people at their info booth during college organization fairs. No dracon beam required.

Visser Three was on a visit to the fat, sagging jellyfish of a mothership yeerks called the Pool Ship. He got a call about radar indicating an andalite ship entering the solar system. Not just andalite scouts, either. It was a fully manned Dome Ship, the aircraft carriers of spaceflight. 

Visser Three was over the moon. Literally. He told Gina to reschedule his appointments. There was no time for mindless bureaucracy. She could keep the fire burning on her own, couldn’t she? He had andalites to kill.

Not that he was a particularly hands on boss in the best of times. 

There used to be another town beneath Santa Barbara. The yeerk pool required as much. There were grocery stores and cafes and an entire movie theater that played new releases a day before they came out above ground. Thousands of apartments branched off from the main hub. They were mostly for hork bajir or taxxon. You know, people who couldn’t just stroll down the street in residential California. 

Personally, Regina would have been happier on the surface with the other human controllers. Her parents bankrolled a perfectly good dorm the past two semesters. They’d be glad to get her an apartment with windows that opened to a view other than hard packed earth. 

Someone still assigned her a studio apartment. Visser Three needed her to be on call.

She knew it must be around eleven o’clock She just tuned in to tonight’s Law and Order. They were passed the cold open. A woman out walking her chihuahua found a dead body in a storm drain. She spoke with a thick New Jersey accent. Gina turned on closed captioning.

Gina’s bedroom-cum-living-room-cum-kitchen was a hole dug into the bedrock under Santa Barbara capped with a garage door. crinkled upwards when it opened. It folded open like a Venetian blind. She hauled herself upright off the coach. Only one person had the pass code to her room and it wasn’t her. 

Visser Three expected everyone to greet him standing at attention despite how he never knocked before storming in. He made his guards salute. What a jar head. 

Gina didn’t want to start the night off on a bad foot. She clasped her hands.

Two parties were forever arguing over which animal an Andalite’s lower body really resembled. According to some people, andalites were like deer. They were dainty and rumor said their babies were speckled white. Gina was in the other camp. To her, they always looked like rancher’s horses. No, they weren’t meant for plowing fields. Those thin, lean muscles were built for distance running. She bet an andalite could herd cattle like no one else. Their fur was a little too shaggy and way too blue, but she could see bunched muscles. They trailed up Visser Three’s familiarly human torso. 

Then there was that distinctly alien, four eyed face.

“Visser Three! Is something the matter, sir?” She hedged her bets when she talked to him. Maybe he took down all those andalites in a blaze of glory, but she wasn’t going to risk making him mad if everything exploded in his face.

If her frazzled state bothered him, he didn’t show it. His eye stalks scanned her, taking in her frizzing hair and naked face. Far from ordering her to make herself presentable, he nodded approvingly. 

Visser Three paced the room. It was small enough for him to go to the wall and back again in five steps. Ten. Fifteen. Usually, it was a bad sign for him to be so wound up. Both sets of ribs heaved deep breaths the way they did before he morphed.

But tonight Gina dared to say Visser Three looked happy. She only had a month’s worth of Andalite body language to guess from, but she picked things up fast.

His hooves clacked against the metal floors. He held himself tense, like he was just barely restrained from breaking into a gallop. It made him wobble in an awkward half-skip. Emotion radiated from him. Even in this short time, Gina learned how thought speak could express more than just words. Now she felt his triumph burst and spill out like unvoiced laughter.

<I killed the andalite prince. Legendary Prince Elfangor met his end between the teeth of his old mentor.> He sauntered closer to her. His fur brushed her. <I never tasted andalite flesh before. A shame my morph had such poorly developed taste buds. I wish to write his people about him. I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied telling them about how what was left of him twitched sliding down my throat.>

Regina blanched. He wasn’t being metaphorical. 

Confessing to cannibalism. Say what you want about Akrass, but she never made Gina eat anything worse than two day old takeout.

Visser Three lifted his chin. <He was no match for me. My only regret is that I was too caught in the ecstasy of finally getting my revenge to have someone record it. If the Andalite homeworld could see their war hero dead and digested they would think twice before they sent another ship here.>

Gina vaguely recalled a ‘Prince Elfangor, Beast and Yeerk-Killer’ from when she still had her own yeerk, Akrass. She talked about him like a ghost story. Don’t fly your Bug Fighter too far from the fleet or Elfangor will get you. “But this way it’ll get back to them in bits and pieces. You’ll look so humble. All in a days work for the great Visser Three. I bet the phone lines are blowing up over your victory.”

<You may be right, but I doubt people will be speaking in my favor. I can think of several Vissers who will be polishing their dracon beams over the fact I disposed of a perfectly good Andalite host.> He snorted through his trifold nose.

Gina bit the inside of her cheek. Thought speak creeped her out, but the times his body made audible sounds were twice as freaky.

He worked himself up again, his tail lashing low behind him. She barely sidestepped a knick from his blade. <They’ll never understand the impact of eating the Andalite’s noble champion. They fail to comprehend the Andalite people’s revulsion towards carnivores. Our enemies are, going back to their earliest ancestors, prey. Other yeerks think they understand andalite terrors. How different can it be from how our own were gulped from pools for a hundred years? They don’t. Do you know how I am privy to this, girl?>

She opened her mouth to speak, but he barreled onward.

<I, and I alone, have listened to the thoughts Andalites preferred keeping private.> He lifted his hand and touched all seven fingers to his brow. He rolled his shoulders back, puffing his chest out. His already large body seemed even bigger, dominating the room. <Fetch me a drink. I wish to celebrate.>

A yeerk decorated Gina’s room. The designs were too hodgepodge for it to have been anyone else. No one bothered to smooth the stone walls, but they took the time to carve out a nook for her humongous T.V. The bed was stolen from a Niagara Falls Honeymoon suite, circular, ruffled, and red. There were no ceiling lights. Eight lamps perched on increasingly precarious ledges jutting from the wall. The kitchenette had a minifridge full of junk food, but the wine rack was always full. 

Someone must be coming in and replacing it while she was out for the day. 

Once she had a shag throw rug, but Visser Three slipped on it. He split his knee open. Andalites bleed blue. 

Regina tossed her metal mixing bowls weeks ago. They sounded like dog dishes on clattering on the floor. Her ceramic bowl clinked like a champagne glass when she pulled it down from the cabinet. The Visser rambled while she selected a bottle.

<The Dome Ship ripped in two like slicing a taxxon across its middle. It couldn’t have vaporized in atmospheric reentry.We will have to keep an eye out.>

She unscrewed the cap with a rubber grippy. It was a cheap drink, but he didn’t have taste buds to tell. She tried not to spill any while upending it.

<I wish I saved his head to bring home. It would have nicely cemented my point. I have this planet well in hand and I’ll take it without Visser One skulking in the shadows. Still, it’s worth tolerating her meddling for a while longer to feel that dying scream come from inside my mouth.>

She carried the bowl with two hands. She hated testing Visser Three’s rare good moods. Last time he forced her to mop the spill with her hair. The pink didn’t come out for days.

Regina knelt in front of him. “Tell me if you want something different, sir. We can have it delivered.”

He looked down where his nose would be at her. <This will suffice.>

The full bowl on her leg was heavy on its own, but when he really bared down it left massive red splotches on her thighs. Tonight, he dipped his hoof daintily. He rarely focused on her comfort, but two decades of practice taught him when he could throw his weight around and when something would splinter underneath him. 

She watches faint rings ripple across the surface, like when a rock was dropped in a pond. Except, it moved backward. Gina hadn’t seen the part of his hoof he drank from. Thankfully. Gag.

<I waited for this. I killed dozens, hundreds, of Andalites tonight. None of them meant a thing. Yes, a Dome Ship down is a prize for the Empire. To me, a fleet is worthless compared to my Elfangor. They lauded him as a hero for escaping me years ago. He never will again.>

Visser Three’s balance on three legs was surprisingly strong, but he shifted back and forth while he drank. If Gina set the bowl on the ground he’d tip it over. She felt his constrained energy in the slosh of wine when his hoof moved. She poured it to the lip, but now only a third was left. 

Drunk.

<If I’d known I’d see him tonight I’d have done something special for the occasion. Had my ship polished. Gotten a new morph. Yet, if anything had been a hair different perhaps Elfangor might have gotten away. Was tonight chance or fate?>

There was only a thin film of liquid on the bottom. He lifted his hoof. Droplets fell Gina’s nightgown.

Chugging a bottle of port in less than half an hour left him swaying. He was still giddy, but less liable to tear a hole through the back of the coach with his wildly flicking tailblade. It scraped the floor.

She stood and set the bowl out of the way. If he kicked it, it would shatter either against his hoof or on impact with the wall. Not by hitting her. “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

He waved towards the bed. His movement was loose. <Sit.>

The mattress creaked. The silk sheets stuck to her sweaty thighs.

<Honor dictates his family avenge him. What they will attempt, who can say. It has been years since an Andalite made a personal attempt on my life. I’ll relish it, compared to the pathetic tries I receive from Sub-Vissers after my position.> He stepped carefully, in the way really wasted people do when they don’t want to tangle their legs. <What will you do when the Andalites come for me?>

“Hide. I’m no soldier.”

He laughed, again snorting in an off puttingly horse-like manner. <Good. I hate when simpering incompetents get in my way during a fight.>

The low light made Visser Three’s coat appear richer blue than he actually was. Steely. Hosts aged well. Something about how a yeerk could completely shut down stress hormones in the brain. Still, according to his public records he’d had this host for longer than Gina’d been alive.

She reclined backwards on the mattress and he loomed. She couldn’t hold all the weight on her elbows. She’d rather do this on her stomach than her back, but he’d order her into a position when he was ready. She pulled at the bow that kept the top of her dress closed. It was real velvet, none of that chintzy JC Penney's crap.

<Tonight the last line of defense for your miserable people died whimpering. No other Andalite is left to willingly sacrifice himself for a lesser life form. Elfangor was rare indeed. It’s unnatural for them to care so strongly for aliens. Still for your sake we may need to look into decent vaccinations. It would be a shame if they were such sore losers they repeated history. Doing to you what they did to the hork bajir.> He seemed to lose his train of thought. All four eyes drifted to her exposed breasts. <Are you afraid?>

“Of the Andalites? No, sir.”

He blinked, again with all four of them at once. <And why not, little girl? You admitted you’d end up crying for mercy if one had you cornered.>

“I don’t need to worry. So long as you’re our Visser on Earth, they’ll never beat us.” Us, as in the yeerks. Us, as in humanity.

He set a hand on her head. The extra fingers always knotted in her hair. <Once the news breaks, you will not be the only one who understands that.>

She felt him tug her hair back, a signal to make room. She stretched her legs wide to accommodate the front most part of his lower body. Her hips ached. Up close she smelled his horse-sweat stink. He got that way after an exciting fight. The hand that wasn’t matting her hair trailed down to rend off her dress. That’s why she had loosened the knot keeping it closed. He could have his fun ripping it without garroting her until the fabric gave.

<Take this off. I want to look at the reason I am capturing this planet.>

She scooched further up the bed from him. It took room to strip appealingly. The gown slipped down like shedded skin. Without it, she was all raw nerves. His fur itched her when he groped. It caught for a moment on her thick hips before she wriggled it off her legs. 

Lamplight made her thin body hair glint gold.

The bedsprings groaned when he leaned against them. She watched his tail rise like a rattlesnake she suddenly found draped across her boot -- perfectly still and hardly breathing. 

Anyone with a clue about the nature of Gina's relationship with Visser Three wondered the same thing. Yes, it really was exactly what people thought. He’s a horse from the waist down. There was nothing alien about what he packed, just bestial. Admittedly, andalites weren’t actually the size of horses. If they were they’d regularly break eight feet tall. Their horse halves were smaller than a real one would be. 

If not for that, Gina wouldn’t have survived their first night together. 

It still wasn’t a great time.

She focused on anything else.

His blade shone in the light. His face was shadowed, except the reflection bouncing off his rectangular pupils. 

<I-> Visser Three cut himself off.

She waited for him to continue. 

He didn’t.

Their breathing was out of sync. She forced hers out slowly. His heaved. He always enjoyed seeing her spread out like a meal, but he was panting harder than usual. The barrel torso of his lower half shuddered. His hand -- unpleasant but not as dangerous as his tail -- settled on her calf. 

“Sir?”

<Be quiet.> He growled, hand moving from her leg to brace himself harder on the bed. He hunched over, leaning into the light. His eyelids twitched rapidly. <Be quiet!>

She shrunk into the pillows.

His upper eyes flicked at her. <Not you.> His main eyes squeezed shut. His cheeks trembled, shoulders spasming like he was about to vomit in spite of his missing mouth. He clawed his cheek. It mussed his fur. 

He might pass out and crush her. She prepared to bolt.

“Should I call a doctor?” She had a phone book in her cabinets with all the pool’s phone extensions listed.

<No! No.> He raked his fingers through the fur on his head. His upper eyes were looking around wildly, taking in the room like he’d never seen it before. <I- I ate him.>

She tried to retreat further up the bed before he decided to lop her head off. She was cornered. Nowhere to go but through him. “Who, sir? The Andalite?”

<Aristh- Prince Elfangor. I ate him.> Visser Three’s voice was different. He sounded smaller in her head, as if he was calling from far away. <Even after all this depravity I did not wish to->

His tail drooped to the floor. She could hear the soft noise it made on impact.

<I hated him. Terribly. I did. Yet, I thought even _he_ might have some restraint. He always threaten make me, but he coveted Elfangor too. I never anticipated he would actually go through with-> Suddenly, his body sagged, loosened from invisible strings. The bedframe shrieked when he dropped such a heavy load on it.

Gina didn’t think he was really talking to her anymore. Not that Visser Three ever actually expected her to be a conversation partner. The problem was, Gina wasn’t sure it was Visser Three talking at all.

His let out a miserable little moan. <What is left of him should have gone to Z-Space. Why do I feel him still churning inside me?>

Her stomach flipped. Sympathetic response or one forced by thought speak?

He kneaded at his cheeks. His fur stood up in spikes when he let go. Suddenly, his shoulders heaved. His fingers tightened around his eye stalk, wrenching at it and keening like beaten dog.

“Sir!”

He froze, looking at her. His face was wet. Gina couldn’t tell whether it was tears or sweat. Did Andalites even cry?

She opened arms and tried to convey that she was addressing Visser Three, not his host. “You had such a long day. Come here.”

He used the last of his energy to raise himself on his wobbling legs. He brought the front two far enough onto the bed that when he collapsed forward again he fell into her embrace. 

Catching him knocked the air out of her. She wheezed.

A moment passed while she wrapped around what fraction of him she could. 

At last, the bed gave up the ghost. The end propping him up gave a tremendous crack when the frame hit the stone floor. She bit back a scream. He flinched.

She had no plan in mind when she invited him closer. When Visser Three wanted her he made it obvious. No guesswork was required. Gina stroked the thick fur on his back, shushing him. “You’re just too tired. You work so hard for the Empire. Why don’t you sleep here tonight?”

She grimaced into his shoulder. That was the last thing she wanted to offer.

<Yes.> Visser Three sounded more coherent even as despair rolled off him in waves, <I must have used more energy morphing than I anticipated.>

He shivered the rest of the night.

* * *

Regina heard about those unlucky witnesses the morning after. She pinched her lips when a hork bajir guard described them as a few loose ends to be tied up. Apparently they already executed some homeless people spotted squatting there. Now there were just a couple of kids to take care of. If they’re smart they’ll keep their mouths shut. No one saw their faces. If they don’t go to the news no one would find them.

Commendations were already flooding in from the council. Andalites took pride in their spaceships. Turning one to scorched scrap metal was something to be proud of. Especially given he left no survivors. 

Visser Three preened over the report in a meeting with his soldiers. Gina sat in to jot down minutes.

Back then, Regina wasn’t involved with the greater invasion. There were ranked Sub-Vissers to dart around Visser Three’s hooves begging for orders to follow. It was before he scared them all off. Gina’s foremost responsibility was standing around looking pretty. Visser Three called her his secretary in public, but he was a man who preferred to deal with people his own way. She filed papers. Everything yeerks did was digital.

Gina filled time by performing her old duties. Technically, they were Akrass’s, but Gina wasn’t sure what happened to her since Visser Three took her body away. Plus, it would look weird to normal people if Gina stopped attending Sharing meetings out of the blue. She’d already FA’d out of her classes.

Nonetheless, Gina wore red now. 

It was a little thing, but all Visser Three’s personale wore red. No human considered it out of the ordinary. Yeerks gave her a berth. 

The sand was cold and not quite dry in the dune Full Members met at. It was gritty inside her sandals. She felt it stick to her feet when she shifted from leg to leg. 

Her eyes drifted across the pacific back to armed guards circling their gathering. She made out bulges in their pockets promising a fatal dracon beam burn for anyone who overheard what they shouldn’t. They took it seriously. One time they disintegrated a cardboard cutout of Larry Bird at a rec center because someone stowed it in a Sub-Visser’s Conference room.

A labrador trotted across the beach.

She elbowed the boy beside her. “Did somebody bring their dog? California has leash laws. If we get a fine they won’t let us host parties here anymore.”

“Some people bring them. It helps draw little kids into meetings. It doesn’t have a collar though.” He snickered, “Maybe it’s rabid”

It looked purebred. “No, it’s really clean. It has to be someone’s pet. I hope it didn’t get loose.”

“Why do you care?”

“If someone from the Sharing brought it, their host’s family will be pissed if they come home without their dog.” Why was she arguing with a yeerk? Visser Three told her avoid speaking to anyone at the meeting. She’d give herself away as soon as she opened her mouth. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to Mr. Chapman.”

Visser Three made her ferry messages when he didn’t feel like making small talk with his minions. He was too busy to chew out every Tom, Dick, and Harry working for him no matter how much he thrilled in scaring them silly.

She kept her arms tightly by her side when she approached Iniss 226. She wanted to kick herself for using his alias in front of a yeerk. If questioned, she would just have to say she didn’t want to get caught unaware spy. Maybe they should get on her level of devotion to the cause.

The meeting hadn’t begun. Yeerks milled around, enjoying their chance to socialize without a veneer of humanity. No reason to pretend they cared about fifth period algebra or taxes.

“Iniss 226.” They weren’t on first name basis.

He regarded her. “Ma’am.”

It wigged her out to hear men old enough to be her father call her ma’am. It made her feel like a little girl in her mother’s high heels, everyone playing along. “Visser Three sends his regards.”

“I appreciate it.”

“He also told me to tell you: Please announce that anyone who can bring him a living witness to his execution of the ‘Beast, Elfangor,’” She made finger quotes, “Will earn a three percent raise.”

Visser Three planned to send that poor soul to the Council as proof he crushed any chance of Andalite resistance on Earth. They could squirm into their head at their leisure.

“Are hosts exempt or is he expecting us to hand them over?” Chapman asked. 

“Do you really think you’d get a warning if Visser Three wanted your host?” It was a genuine question.

“I meant no disrespect, Miss-” He hemmed without a name or title to call her, “I apologize for my informal tone. I keep forgetting. The last yeerk controlling your host was a fairly adept recruiter. Look into the host’s memories. You’re new to earth, but around here you can’t just sit on the sidelines. It unsettles the humans. If you want to come to more meetings, wonderful. We can always use someone preaching about us. Just try to be less standoffish. It’s not how human women act. Her last yeerk was a very friendly young woman.”

He clearly realized he managed to turn this situation from bad to worse with that spiel.

Trouble making friends was what pushed Gina into attending a Sharing meeting six months earlier.

She walked away. She didn’t have to stand there and get insulted to her face. Bullying her was Visser Three’s job, not this balding loser’s.

“You alright?”

Tom Berenson was taller than her, with the kind of broad shouldered, bland handsomeness she used to look for in high school boyfriends. His yeerk was a premium suck-up.

“Yes, thank you Temrash.”

“It’s no problem. Look, I heard what Iniss 226 was saying. I worked recruitment drives with the last yeerk who had that host pretty often. If you need any help-”

“I don’t need advice on how to be a teenage girl, thank you.” The sun was already low over the ocean. It wasn’t sunburn that made her face hot.

The meeting got underway. There was a commotion near the dune when a middle schooler had to be steered away, but no one thought much of it. Certainly not Gina. She was stewing.

The dog went left too.

* * *

And then the Andalites Bandits appeared.

Regina hated the yeerk pool. The stench of human misery was only one part of the issue. She had a more self centered. Hot walls of steam drifted off the pool. Whether it was kandrona rays or a massive heater situated below them, the pool was warmer than pavement in the Californian sun. It turned her curls awfully frizzy. Now that she was free to choose her own clothes she considered adding silk hair scarves to her wardrobe. Not that Visser Three would permit it. He liked her hair

She’d been thinking of ordinary issues like that when the screams began. 

The cow bellows of hork bajir contrasted with the shrill trilling of taxxon. Humans joined in. The crowd around her and Visser Three pulsed. Between clash of the bodies she saw things that made no sense.

Orange and black stripe. A tiger? Was that a tiger?

There were other dangerous animals standing out of place in this cave, but her eyes stopped on him. He stood out -- near fluorescent -- in the stone cavern.

Gina felt the giddy menace pouring out of Visser Three. She clasped his arm and immediately regretted it once one of his eye stalks glowered at her. She rocked back on her heels. “Visser, sir-”

<Make yourself scarce. I’ll retrieve you once I take their heads.>

She followed his advice as the crowd parted. A final look at whatever creature he turned into was enough. It radiated heat. Sweat sprang to her brow even as she ducked into the retreating crowd of human controllers.

Gina followed the flow of people into the labyrinth office structures branching away from the pool. Four other humans ducked into an unlocked room. She dead bolted it behind them. A closed door amounted to about to a blanket if that elephant decided to charge it. They boomed even over the cacophony of human screaming. She cowered in a corner with those lucky enough to have escaped the fight.

It seemingly went on for hours. They didn’t dare turn on the lights to check the clock.

Finally, the shadows of feet blotted out the light slipping in under the door. 

“Hello?” A human voice called in english. “Is anyone there? All hands should be on the pool deck for clean up.”

Tentative, she let the others shuffle out before her. No tailblade came to strike her down, so she felt safe. Before she could walk off with the group, a hand grabbed her arm.

“Visser Three requested you in conference room five.”

Her path didn’t take her through the pool deck. It the andalites left everything a blood bath she’d be able to smell it from the halls. Poor air circulation below ground had the whole complex smelling sour. 

She arrived at a white door. It was ajar. She knew it was the right one without even looking at the number. Visser Three was shouting down the house.

<I should have every one of your heads for this, but that would be a waste of bodies. Next time I send a ship crashing from orbit, I should not be the only one actually killing our enemies. Is it to ask that you pick off the stragglers?!>

She peeped through the crack. A collection of high ranking yeerks stood at attention, but their heads were bowed. She noticed a hot, menstrual smell that she hoped was only from the blood browning on several hork bajir’s blades. The strength of left her suspecting she arrived right after Visser Three finished dispatching the people he didn’t consider worthy of berating.

She leaned too far forward. The door creaked.

Visser Three’s eye stalks whipped around. <There you are. I hope you enjoyed your cowardly reprieve today.>

She raised her eyes. “Sir?”

<Come. We’re going to the Pool Ship tonight. I need time to arrange a proper task force to deal with this, considering that before I arrived the Earth Invasion was staffed by the scum left at the bottom of the pool.> He favored his soldiers one last backwards glance as he stormed out the door. <You are dismissed.>

When he wanted to, Visser Three walked much faster than anyone on two legs. His hooves clopped on the stone floor. The echo made her ears ring. Only taxxon kept up with him while he was in a trot. She was wearing high heels and lagging behind.

He stopped. <Tell me, do you intend to be the one I take my frustration out on or are you just naturally feeble?>

“Sir?” She gasped, catching up.

He leveled her a look. <I told you to come.>

Visser Three yanked a hank of her hair hard enough to topple her onto her knees. He started off again. The force could have ripped her hair right out if she hadn’t scrabbled after him as fast as she could. 

They made it out of the hallway and onto the pool deck. 

He only let her go when yeerks left their tasks -- cleaning up the mess, reinfesting hosts, and who knew what else -- to cower back as he passed.

He shook his hand, like it ached from dragging her. <Don’t make me tell you again.>


	3. The Visitor

**Please state your name for the record.**

Her name's Rachel Berenson. She finished her freshman year at Berkeley two weeks ago.

There's nothing scary about the witness stand. Her mother's a lawyer. They had several tense chats over what she expected Rachel to say. Fifth amendment junk.

Wasted breath.

Nobody told Rachel what to do these days. Besides free haute couture, raw freedom the best perk of being a planet wide celebri-hero.

Speaking of, her suit was tailor made Chanel. What no one knew was how she tore it away at a moments notice thanks to break away buttons. The designer wanted something morph friendly and easy to repair; That meant it needed to break cleanly.

Lots of people failed to realize that more than Cassie or Jake or even Ax, Rachel joined this war with a clear picture of what they'd have to do as Animorphs. She saw Elfangor's death while her friends turned away. Not that she blamed them. Visser Three's Bladeship glowed blindingly bright like stadium lighting at a gymnastics meet. It burned to look at. She still saw it like a photo negative every time she blinked.

So, yeah, she knew what she messing with when Vice Principal Chapman handed her over. No, she didn't feel great about her odds.

Street lights illuminated the pounding rain. It reflected and bounced and glimmered. 

Stuck in Fluffers McKitty's cat carrier, Visser Three’s blue fur blocked Rachel's view. She buried herself in borrowed feline instincts. Fluffers wasn't afraid of some blue guy invading her personal space. He smelled awful. Sizzling rubbing alcohol wafted off him and Rachel pawed her nose.

Tragically, he retreated before Rachel could follow her heart and claw open his nose slits. Only then did Rachel notice the sole human in his entourage.

A blonde girl lingered by the ship’s entrance. Her clothes, a red pantsuit paired with a gauzy blouse, reminded Rachel of stuff her mom wore to work when Rachel was five. It was hopelessly tacky. She couldn’t have been older than twenty. Of all the indignity that came along with being a controller, her hideous outfit had to be in the top ten. If she had to dress professionally for this hostage exchange she should at least wear something a little more Ally McBeal and a little less Cheers.

Chapman started talking. Rachel and the mystery girl flinched. He went on forever, but he stuttered too much to say much. 

The girl caught a hork bajir’s eyes and made a gesture of checking her watch, then pointed at Visser Three. She didn’t want to interrupt him, but even Rachel was antsy. Get a move on, Mr. Chapman.

Visser Three warned Chapman this meeting was on borrowed time. Well, he warned Iniss. Melissa's dad didn’t care. He wobbled on his feet, but he lifted his chin. Rachel's cat nose didn’t pick up a whiff of fear. 

Meanwhile, his slug had been shaking in his slacks.

Even when he admitted he was a voluntary controller, Rachel stung with pride.

Vice Principal Chapman said, “The girl is no threat, but I am.”

Even stuffed in a cat carrier, so was Rachel.

* * *

Every morning, alongside her eggs and coffee, some fashion conscious yeerk left Regina a pair of satin pumps. Her wardrobe got delivered, although she was allowed to pair whatever she wanted. No one let her out unsupervised long enough to swing by The Limited. High ranking yeerks never shopped for themselves. Visser Three's staff -- Gina among them -- saw to his every whim, from fine linen sheets to expensive liquor he couldn’t taste.

She suspected whoever picked this out also outfitted Visser One during her time on earth. Bearing a grudge towards Visser Three explained why the shoes they sent her slowly chewed through her achilles tendons. Admittedly, she’d been on her feet from the word jump. Not the best way to break in a set of heels. No choice in the matter, though. Visser Three's expected Gina to be at his beck and call:

<Regina, fetch me some water.>

<Regina, take these to Sub-Visser Twenty-Four.>

<Regina, stop standing around and find a way to be useful. You’re in the way.>

Now she was at the pool canteen, stepping over taxxon trails and getting elbowed by voluntary humans who fought for a slice of pizza before they got paged back to the docks. 

She wasn’t eating lunch. God forbid. It reeked like a high school cafeteria and the lines were longer than Disney World’s. If she craved something, she ordered delivery on Visser Three’s private phone line. No one asked about payment when they thought it was for him.

Thirty four hork-bajir were reassigned from Visser’s One to Three during the power transfer. Not one filled out the correct paperwork. She’d been delivering manila folders for three hours and only had one left. It might have gone faster she could tell hork bajir apart. Then again, she wasn’t rushing. Before she left, Visser Three cracked his tailblade so close that he shaved off some of her arm hair.

She grabbed a soldier just below the wrist blades. “Excuse me,” She said when he dropped his lunch tray and spilled his wood shavings on the linoleum, “I’m looking for Estril 731.”

Hork-bajir weren’t known for their winning smiles, but he gave her an ugly look. He snapped at her in galard. “I saw him over near the vending machines. He’s with that little sister of his.”

She craned her head around. The sole good thing about these shoes was how they boosted her another two inches. At nearly six feet she could see over a lot of people’s heads. 

The hork-bajir shoved her. She nearly went sprawling over a hissing taxxon. “Get lost. This is my break.”

Regina steadied herself on a lunch table. She avoided slapping her hand down in the middle of someone’s food.

A hork-bajir and a little sister? Was that his yeerk pool-sister? Some little early infested hork-bajir? The first yeerk to ever make an honest to god friend?

Estril 731 sat in a booth seat with a little girl. She wore an Abercrombie and Fitch sweat shirt with 'Surfs Up!' emblazoned across it.

“Hello!" Gina called.

The hork-bajir waved from where he was conspiring with his friend. “Can I help you?”

“Akrass 573?” The little girl sneered.

Gina blanched and held out a folder. She didn’t know the kid from Adam. “No. I’m here with paperwork from the Visser’s office.”

“Oh, thank-”

“No problem. Return it to Sub-Visser Fifty Eight within twenty four hours or it’s dereliction of duty.”

He opened his beak.

“Goodbye.”

Gina felt like a dancing plastic doll on the dash of a car melting in the sun. She dipped through a door marked Staff before he finished his thought.

Some days she wondered how Santa Barbara didn’t collapse like a beehive under a boot. There were hundreds of miles of tunnels crisscrossing underneath everyone’s feet. Even after cumulative weeks spent jailed at the pool bank and months living there full time she had no clue where most led. She was somewhere under the mall now. She didn’t hear some echo of clanging coat hangers or anything like that. She just saw a sign marking an elevator up to the GAP changing room.

She took the long route and frequently stopped to slip her fingers in the backs of her shoes. Fabric stuck to her gummed up skin.

She passed a room full of sleeping taxxon both looking and stinking like a bundle of burnt electrical cables knotted together. Next, a fully equipped gym where several Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonators pumped iron. Finally, a break room where a solitary human janitor smoked a cigarette directly into an air vent. 

He gave her an upwards nod.

She tried not to hunch her shoulders. Looking intimidated reflected badly on Visser Three. If word got back to him she’d be in for it.

After sixteen right turns, Gina reached her destination. This door was dented in several places like somebody attacked it with a baseball bat. It opened when she approached. 

<You’re back.> Visser Three raised a single eye stalk. <I’m parched. Pour me a drink.>

The top of Visser Three’s desk sat just under Gina’s breasts. It had to be that tall, because far as Gina knew andalites never invented chairs. Visser Three stood at it when he wasn’t stalking around the room scaring her. Right now he was bent over, glowering at one of several monitors set up.

“Will do, sir.”

Along one wall there was a slightly raised trough, around knee height. Its faucet ran even when he wasn’t there. They wasted gallons daily. God forbid, however, he walk six feet to get a drink when he actually wanted some.

She had her desk pushed into a corner so her back was facing the wall. It was far enough from him he couldn't immediately smack her when the urge struck. The drawers were empty aside from a box of kleenex, a tube of lipstick, and a deep ceramic bowl. Perched on one corner was a clunky, plastic telephone with a heart shaped rotary dial. She had a brand new Dell computer. She used the monitor to check her makeup.

Gina dipped the bowl in the trough and carried it over to his desk. She had to half crawl underneath to reach his hooves. He never bothered moving until she was close enough to clack it on his bony horse ankles.

His leg trembled as he sipped.

<Espionage is a waste of resources. Do you think we made youth groups for hork-bajir?> He stretched while he talked. His weight made her knees pop. Fat ass. <That wasn’t rhetorical.>

“No, sir, but that was like twenty years ago. I wouldn’t know. I wasn't alive yet.”

<Closer to twenty five of your years. We snuck in the earliest days, but it was for hours at a time. What is the point of having a host if you’re merely pantomiming their lives for them?>

“Did Visser One say why she wanted to do it this way?”

Now he snapped his head down towards her. His eyelids were low. <Yes. She wanted to play house with her humans. A real invader knows better.>

Without warning he forced his hoof down hard against the bottom of the bowl. Water overflowed around his leg and slopped onto her skirt. Her ribs almost broke from how hard she choked on her pain. A squeak escaped through her teeth. It felt like fifty pound dumbbell dropped on her crotch.

<You’ve made a mess.> He said as he lifted his foot. <Clean it up.>

She tucked the bowl underneath his desk. He might kick it over by accident, but he would do it on purpose if he couldn't suck down the film left on the bottom.

Gina wobbled to her feet. The room was bland, gray on gray, excavated stone paired with space-age metal that probably wasn’t steel. Must be strong, whatever it is. Something kept the ant colony below Santa Barbara from caving in under its own weight. What this room distinctly lacked was any sort of towel to clean up with. She could use her jacket, but cold seeping through her wet skirt was bad enough. Her eyes flickered around the room. She made no sudden movements. Looking wilted usually stopped him from hurting her worse. He liked a moving target. Her eyes landed on the box of tissues. They’d do.

She took a fistful to sop up his mess. The water came up gritty with dust. She stuck out her tongue. Eventually nothing more blotted up. There was still a darker patch on the floor.

Regina avoided eye contact while she made her way back to her desk. She dropped the tissues in a mesh waste paper basket next. They splattered. 

Surprisingly, he forgot to find another demeaning job for her. Probably distracted himself sending angry emails to sub-vissers. She took the chance to rest her aching feet. At least her desk chair was plush.

She flipped through the red agenda on her desk. She tracked of all Visser Three’s meetings for him. It was her fault if he ran late. She picked up the phone and punched in a residential number.

“Hello, Chapman residence?”

Her sopping dress clung on the leather seat. “Visser Three’s office. You were supposed to call seventeen minutes ago.”

“What? That was rescheduled!”

“Not according to him.” She’d pay to see that condescending prick go white.

“Shit!” Human cursing? How unbecoming of an invader. 

She tutted, “Call back on his line.”

She hung up.

It wasn’t three minutes before Visser Three’s holo-phone projector buzzed. He flicked an eye stalk at it. <Who is it?>

“Iniss 226, sir.”

<That simpering waste?> He checked the desk clock. It was wooden and ornate. An infested lawyer gave him it as a gift. It wasn't even wound. <About time.>

Gina didn’t eavesdrop on their call. Iniss bored her. A total suck up. Everything from her hips down pounded with her heart. Her eyes felt full of beach sand. She only opened them when she heard something about a cat.

She craned around in her seat.

Next to Iniss’s holographic desk was an absolute fluffball cat. It was gray with grayer stripes and almost blended in with the floor of Visser Three’s office. It wasn’t paying anyone a lick of attention.

"It could be an Andalite," Visser Three said. "Destroy it." 

Gina buried her face in her palms. She didn’t need to see a middle school assistant principal kill a cat. She heard it mew. They spoke for a second before Visser Three’s tail made that ungodly whipping sound. 

Gina tore a tissue in half. Then into quarters. Eighths and sixteenths came next.

Visser Three began to laugh. Not a maniacal cackle, a full chuckle. She dared peek around.

Kitty had a teeny paw raised defiantly towards Visser Three. It swiped him. Gina covered her mouth so she wouldn’t snort. She pressed her hand down harder when he told him to kill it anyway.

Iniss demurred. The cat wasn’t technically his. His hosts girl child owned it.

It was like watching a ping pong ball. She’d never seen someone so insistent about disobeying him. It seemed Iniss would get his way, until Visser Three morphed.

She closed her eyes again. Morphing made him look like he got doused with acid. She pinched her nose at the boggy smell that drifted off this body. It was like the underside of a log, wet and writhing.

He growled and threatened, but eventually spared the cats life. The call ended.

Gina heard the shush of fur re-sprouting. She pressed her knees together. Hooves clicked across the floor until her stopped behind her.

<So. Is there any truth in that nonsense about cats or should I wet my palette?>

“Cat’s are a real thing, sir. They’re a kind of pet.” Do yeerks domesticate things other than host species?

He set his hands on her shoulders. <Pets. Yes, so he said. We yeerks have a word for that sort of thing. Veleeks. I believe it’s named after some strain of urchin gedd farmed on the homeworld.>

“Do you have any pets, sir?” She blurted out when his fingers started stroking her neck. Distract him, Gina.

<At least one.> He rubbed under her chin. His fur tickled

Oh. Gross.

<Look at you. You’re a mess. Go freshen up. When I adjourn for the day I expect to find you in my quarters.> He leaned over her shoulder. She could see blue fur in her peripheral. His hand settled in her lap. <You’re soaked. Get rid of this and don’t ruin anything else. I provide you with enough as is. If you can’t take care of things maybe I’ll strip you of your,> He squeezed her soft stomach, <Privileges. I’ll expose you to everyone for what you really are. Do you know what you are?>

“A host without a yeerk?”

<A woman.>

* * *

Maybe he brought them to this construction site to gloat. It wouldn’t be beneath him to remind everyone his favorite past time was cannibalism. The Blade Ship situated between those skeletal buildings made everyone anxious. Gina'd never been there, but she sensed of how tense all the guards were. She stayed out of the way.

Rain came down in intermittent sheets for hours. It mixed the concrete dust and hard packed dirt into a thin brown slurry that the hork bajir would track back into the ship in tyrannosaurus footprints. The street lights glowed and the night shimmered like a sequined skirt. 

She'd had a good night before this, cozy in her pajamas as the Law and Order theme song echoed in her stone cavern. Then her pager buzzed itself right off the couch’s arm. It cracked on the floor and kept jittering. According to the message flashing on the screen, she had five minutes to throw her clothes back on before it she’d been expected in the hanger. Regina put on pantyhose to cover the bruises on her knees, but now they were getting sweat-damp. It made her slip forward in her heels. 

She held back, behind the hork bajir guards, and watched Visser Three’s tail swing side to side. It’s still only at waist level. A good sign. He danced on the tips of his hooves.

He wrenched the cat carrier from Iniss’s hands. <This is similar to the orange and black creature that invaded the pool.>

Visser One probably knew what a tiger was.

Rain bounced off the metal ramp and seeped into Gina’s shoes. 

Iniss trembled. He might be having a seizure. Maybe yeerks could trip and hit the wrong button inside someone’s brain. Whatever was going on, he wobbled on his feet. "Visser, my host begs leave to address you directly."

Gina nearly slapped a hand over her mouth.

Visser Three flicked his eyes nervously. He could take Iniss’s head off for asking that. Instead, he consented.

Mr. Chapman dropped like a bird hitting a power line. His legs splayed. He tried to say ‘Visser Three’, but it came out a mash of consonants. 

The Visser’s patience ran thing.

“Visser Three. You-” Mr. Chapman swallowed his spit, “We had a deal.”

Gina’s stomach twisted like a wrung washcloth. This man was sitting in the mud on his ass trying to convince an alien warlord to not crawl inside his daughter. Gutsy. 

Her mouth felt wet and sour.

She waved to a hork bajir who disembarked. That creep she met at the canteen earlier. She tapped her wrist. She wasn’t allowed a watch, but the message was obvious. They were burning moonlight.

He whispered something to Visser Three. The Visser waved his tail in a high arch.

Gina kept her eyes wide. They watered. If he wanted her to watch him kill a middle school assistant principal, so be it.

He didn’t. Mr. Chapman rambled and warned to his heart’s content. She was on her toes the whole time, but even when he claimed he’d get himself institutionalized just to inconvenience them, Visser Three held back. 

Finally, he nodded. <Leave the girl, for now. Now get out. You tempt my patience.>

Gina clenched her teeth to stop her jaw from dropping. Mr. Chapman, or Iniss, scrambled into his car and peeled out. It echoed in the wet night, until Gina realized that wasn’t Chapman’s shitty little sedan.

Visser Three turned tail and ran back into his ship. Construction equipment trundled across the ground, gouging muddy tracks as it approached. He snarled something to a taxxon pilot. The cat yowled inside the cat carrier Visser Three slung around like a suitcase. He chucked it into a corner.

She watched the construction vehicle close in through the open door. It didn’t seem real. Something was so much more absurd about getting bulldozed than dracon beamed. It drove five miles an hour. They could get out of the way before it hit them. It’s like if a Visser suddenly decided his weapon of choice was a shotgun. 

Visser Three did god knew what. The crew bustled around her.

“Is someone going to do something about that cat?”

No one answered. She dipped around busy soldiers and crouched to see inside.

A pulsating mass of flesh looked back at her through green eyes. It’s hair slurped back into its skin. Chapman wasn’t lying when he said he caught an andalite. 

Gina had no business getting involved in that mess.

She hauled backwards through a door into a hall and covered her ears when nearby taxxon joined in the chorus of shouts. Visser Three tore him open. He exploded like a can of shaving cream, pressurized to burst. 

A shape darted in the shadows. Would an andalite gut her too? She wasn’t planning to find out. Hork Bajir streamed to their battle stations and she weaved below their blades. 

The first room she found was a utility closet. She crouched underneath a blinking panel until her ankles gave way. The door shut and she was bathed in quiet.

The ship rocked.

The emergency light were to dim to read a watch by. Not that she had one. Time passed. No clue how much.

Eventually that rude hork bajir opened the door. He flinched.

“There you are.” He said. “We landed back at the pool.”

He was haloed by fluorescent lights. She slouched on level with his thighs. “Oh.”

“You should go find the Visser.”

“Yes. I’ll go do that.” She climbed to her feet. One of her heels cracked in her mad dash. She kicked them both off before she wandered out into the spaceship hanger. Her stocking slipped on the stone floor.

* * *

Regina chugged her water and aspirin cocktail. Her knees cramped time she tried to straighten them. The jumbo couch in Visser Three’s earthly quarters was worlds better than her office chair. She lay completely prone, feet on the arm rest.

It took her fifteen minutes to find him, but she didn’t want to get labelled a deserter. Normally a guard escorted her when he wanted her in there. They usually ended their nights together in her room. His was larger, with wall-to-wall carpeting. Maybe the constant clatter of hooves on stone gave him headaches. The furniture was absurdly sized to accommodate his weight and stuffed with something that didn’t jostle her when he sank down onto it too. The ceilings were high and the walls smooth, aside from where they were broken up with glowing screens.

The room suffered a major lack of decorations. Did he have something homier on the Pool Ship?

<I should turn this chunk of space-debris into a game preserve when we’re done.>

Gina watched him out of the corner of her eye, but saved staring head on for when she was addressed.

<It’s infested with organic life like nothing else in the universe. You humans are doing a fine enough job destroying your biodiversity on your own, but under normal protocol we’d finish the job.>

“Finish the job?”

<Turn the planet into a parking lot.> He gave her a withering look with his extra eyes. <Use your brain. No one else is.>

She pretended to sip from her empty cup so she didn’t have to respond. He was loud in her head.

<That’s merely procedure. I can’t help but find some of your creatures oddly exciting. The andalites are of the same mind.>

The tiger and the gray cat agreed.

<I should see to it that a few biomes remain semi-functional. If nothing else it would be a place to test new morphs.>

“Like, Earth animals or the ones from other planets?”

He turned his whole face to look at her. He squinched his eyes, eyebrows raised.

She cringed, but there was nothing to lose in finishing her thought. “I just meant that if you tried out some of your morphs on animals the Bandits use you could check which are best for when.”

He snorted. <I mean to do that after I put those troublemakers down. It won’t be much longer. I don’t need to run battle simulations. I’ve been inside this host since before you were born, girl.>

Rude. It was just a suggestion.

<That said, it’s good to see you opening your mouth to say something moderately intelligent. Better than that fool Iniss. I agree to that pathetic little bargain and make his life easier. What does he do? Lead the andalites to our meeting! His host could run that recruitment operation better than he could.>

Chapman was more of a man than that slug for sure.

<You know how it enrages me to see such a terrible waste of resources. If I only could hold every host on Earth myself. Things might finally get done.>

“You think they’re doing a bad job with their hosts?” She tucked her knees under her chin. It was so much warmer in his room than hers. Maybe it was just being comfortable the first time all day. Plus, the Visser was growing a winter coat. He gave off heat.

He scoffed. <They focus too much energy playing house. While they do that, hundreds of thousands of yeerks stagnate in the pools.>

They sat in silence. 

Gina just told Visser Three to treat endangered animals like target practice. She really needed some sleep.

<Perhaps it will become easier for weaklings like Iniss once every creature he deals with is domesticated as his cat.>


	4. The Encounter

**Please state your name for the record.**

Hi. His name's Tobias Fangor. Yes, he was completely aware of how stupid he looked right now. 

Before he explained everything that happened to him for the past three years, Tobias needed to let everyone know this stupid set up was not his idea. A genius bailiff lugged away the chair during the recess and propped up a bird stand instead. It was built for a canary, not a red tailed hawk. The plastic sagged under him like hammock ripping a hork bajir. Trust him, he’d seen it. If it snapped they’d have to go get the chair again. He could have perched on the back of one just fine. Tobias got they were trying to 'accommodate' him.

Still felt degrading. Not that he said as much. Rachel's mom was already glaring daggers.

Tobias shut up.

He felt fidgety for a lot of reasons. He could do this as a human if these so called accommodations included giving him breaks to refresh his morph. Even leaving out the weird stuff -- which they all agreed not to do -- this was going to take all day. Jake's testimony did.

At least if he was human the roof over his head wouldn’t remind him of bird cages the whole time.

No reason to focus on that now. Tobias resisted preening. He plucked too many feathers last night. Now he flew lopsided. 

Tobias didn’t ramble on purpose. He took a deep breath. Back to the topic at hand.

Little kids wonder silly things. 

One time, Rachel told Tobias this story about her sister Sara. She asked Rachel: How many buckets they would need empty out the entire ocean? How long would it take? Where could she put all the water? Rachel didn’t have a good answer, so she flipped the question. Where fish and whales and sunken alien spaceships would go if someone tried?

There were more down there than Sara expected.

Rachel regretted it. Apparently, Sara gave her the silent treatment for days. Rachel offered a corner store candy bar as an olive branch. She spent the last of her allowance on it. It was a pain, because she and Tobias planned to go out to the movies with that money, but in retrospect it made him crack up. 

Rachel’s sisters really were just like her.

Back to the question. Tobias couldn’t speak for the whole ocean, but one time yeerks lowered the shoreline of a lake in northern California by at least a quarter mile. Took then two hours. By the time they were through a new bank of shiny pebbles baked in the sun. 

He scoped it out while the others were at school. Before Ax showed up Tobias did that stuff alone. Patrolling was way more fun once he had Ax to talk to, but back then Tobias just felt glad to contribute. It's not like he was useful in a fight. 

He flew too high for anyone down below to notice, but he saw them just fine. Even now, there was still something absurd about seeing a bunch of tools dressed up like Ranger Smith from Jellystone pounding pavement next to squads of hork bajir. He’d mentioned it to Marco, who gibed they sure weren’t looking for pic-i-nic baskets.

Anyway.

He definitely remembered the second time he saw her.

She face planted into straight gravel. Almost broke her nose.

It must have hurt. From what he ascertained, she slipped in a slick spot on the ramp deboarding from her ship and skidded three feet before tumbling on the rocks. She caught herself on her hands, but when she wobbled to her feet one of her knees had a fat, bleeding scrape. 

It was the same kind of embarrassing stunt he'd have pulled back when he still attended middle school. A shockingly mundane thing to happen to an alien parasite piloting a park ranger. 

He recognized her as that weepy girl Visser Three wailed on, but figured she got transferred to a gig where she didn't deal with raving psychos. Good for her.

She glowered at a man beside her. He yukked it up while she flopped around on the ground -- which again reminded Tobias of his own life -- and didn't bother to help her up. She slunk away. At no point did Tobias see her do anything about the blood dribbling down her calve like a runny nose. And let him tell you, he stalked her for a while after that.

To prove his point about terrible luck, this was the moment in his witness statement the plastic parakeet perch shattered under him.

* * *

Akrass 573 made Gina dream of the moon. Through milky gedd eyes, dry and blurred from being outside the water too long, it was featureless and shiny as the back of a CD. It was no realer than the silver crescent little kids drew in the corners of their pictures. 

Through the Pool Ship's porthole, Earth’s moon was pitted and worn as an eroded beach. Its atone puckered with holes sharp-edged enough to slice her heel if she brushed them. It wasn't ghostly white like through Earth’s city smog. It filled the entire window and shone so bright it stung to look at. Gina imagined it felt like a bumpy acrylic painting, sitting in it’s metal picture frame. 

Regina rode shotgun in spaceships way too often for her liking, but she’d never been outside Earth’s atmosphere until today. The Sharing never had a good enough reason to ship some co-ed that far out of state back when she was still with Akrass. Their skill set was better suited for passing out flyers while wearing a tube top.

Now if she looked to her left, over a hork bajir’s shoulder, Earth’s moon was so close she could cut a slice from it with a plastic knife from the Pool Ship’s cafeteria. They were closer to the moon than Earth. 

She couldn’t stare for long. A man old enough to be her dorm RA was giving a presentation to a group of V.I.Cs, Very Important Controllers. He wore Visser One’s yellow uniform. All the people in the audience were, like Gina, outfitted in Visser Three’s red.

This guy meandered on for half an hour now. He’d lost Visser Three’s attention five minutes in. To be fair -- and Gina hardly ever wanted to be towards Visser Three -- this man spent his allotted time going in depth about the water cycle. To be clear, not some special alien microbes hidden in raindrops or how to use the water table to drip-feed Californians mind control drugs. This strictly covered third grade science class material. Ocean evaporation to clouds to rain to run off back to the ocean. 

He brought a laminated chart. He passed out copies with little blank sections spectators could write the answers into.

The woman next to Gina folded hers into an origami swan.

Visser Three spent the last twenty five minutes openly fiddling with something on his personal computer. From what she could see leaning back far in her chair, he was playing Spider Solitaire. 

She didn’t have the liberty to be blatantly rude. She actually listened to Visser One’s dork drone.

“-now, you may be wondering how ocean water becomes desalinated, but-”

<But as fascinating as I’m sure we’ll find your explanation, those of us adapted to planetary time have lunch at this hour. You must wait until later to astonish us.>

“Sir-”

Visser Three brought all his eyes down on him. <Yes?>

Everyone in his retinue held their breath. Regina sat closest to him. Cold sweat crept down the back of her neck. A soft breeze fanned her his tail swished by.

“Have a nice lunch, sir!”

<Of course.> He flicked an eye towards the controllers sitting behind him. <You’re dismissed. Regroup in a planetary hour.> Privately, he added, <Come along, Regina.>

She didn’t have time to send the presenter a backwards glance. She trotted to keep up with Visser Three. His yeerks streamed in the opposite direction. Presumably, that way lay the foot court. 

Gina wasn’t getting lunch. That'd be too fun.

<Edriss must think I spawned yesterday. She’s sending her underlings to lecture me. I can’t just be rid of them without her accusing me of mutiny against the Emperor’s Visser System. I should send her that fools head in a box for such an insult, but no. She found this miserable speck of cosmic dirt. Now we all must bow and flagellate while she acts as if she’s the only person who has ever overpowered an inferior species before.>

Gina picked up the pace. His tail gesticulated just like his hands. She’d rather take a slap for walking beside him -- 'presumptuous' -- than feel the blunt end of his blade crack her skull.

They stopped in front of a floor to ceiling window. Regina saw the moon.

<She wastes my time with her little tutorials on planetary maintenance while a band of andalites plot Kandrona knows what to undermine us.>

Gina knew her prompt to speak. “It does sort of seem like busy work.”

<Yes. As if I’m still simmering in the pool taking my lessons on Gedd wrangling instead of leading the most prestigious invasion the empire’s ever seen.> He sneered impressively for someone with no mouth. <But perhaps there in lies her issue. The Emperor removed her from her pet project so someone more capable could take over. Someone with proven military aptitude rather than someone who crash landed on this planet a decade ago.>

Gina rubbed her wrist. It was still sore from last night. “Someone who can actually handle problems when andalite’s show up.”

He barked out a laugh and it made her sweat again. <Precisely. However, I can never do that with all this -- what did you call it -- busy work.>

They stewed. She covertly lifted her hair. She wanted to air out her neck. It trapped heat like fleece jumper.

<I can’t shoot her messenger, but I can still pay insult onto insult.> He turned to her with his entire upper body. <I’m giving you a real assignment, my little veleek. Attend all these lectures in my absence. Take relevant notes and oversee useless redtape. I have more pressing matters to attend.>

No one could argue with Visser Three. When he walked her back to the conference room and told everyone she’d be sitting in for him they all said it was a brilliant idea. She had no clue what yeerk they imagined lived in her head, but the presenter addressed her with a very stuttered “Ma’am” any time he spoke to her. 

Meetings slouched on for the rest of the day. Everyone Visser Three left behind also inhabited human bodies. None of this lecture on evaporation shocked them. They’d all been through elementary school. Hot water dissolved things fast and those mixtures were called solutions. She half expected this man to start passing out worksheets for them to color in.

Still, between diligently taking notes and scribbling charts Gina realized all this baby’s-first-science-class stuff was leading up to.

“Is this about collecting water for the Pool Ship? The underground Pools absorb it from the water table, but we can’t up here.”

All eyes turned to her.

“Yes, ma’am.” It was a different presenter than before lunch. She had gums like a goat when she smiled.

Regina blanched. “Well, I don’t see why that would suddenly be a huge problem. You’ve been doing it just fine. Do you expect us to start harvesting rain clouds all of a sudden?”

She showed all her teeth when she frowned. “The Visser in charge must sign off on anything that directly affects the environment. Safety protocols.”

“You’ve been doing it for, like, ten years and haven’t caused a drought yet. Give me the paperwork and I’ll make sure he signs it.”

“Pardon me, ma’am, but I answer to Visser One. She insisted we present to Visser Three himself. Unless you’re a very pretty morph, then that’s not you. Who are you again?”

No one in the room breathed

“I'm his personal secretary.” Gina spat out. “And he told me to take care of all this while he focuses on things that actually matter when it comes to invading a planet. So how about you give me whatever paperwork needs to be done and I’ll fill personally it out for you.”

While she signed reams of forms, she ordered someone to get her a hot coffee.

Late that evening, while Gina was sitting on her sore knees beside Visser Three’s bed, he worked his fingers through the knots in her hair. He jerked her head every time he caught one.

“ No one told me if the source changes how the pool, um, tastes? I’m pretty sure we could steal water from community swimming pools with how much it’s processed.”

<What we absorb is not even an aftertaste once one has experienced the real sensation.>

“Good to know, sir.”

He patted her head. 

The carpeted floor dug dots into her skin. Her jaw felt like a popped rubber band. She still pushed through to make her report. “I hope I acted alright. I don’t want to overstep.”

<It would have wasted my time valuable time to bother with that ridiculous pageant.> He hummed. <In fact, tomorrow you’re going to stand in for me again.>

“Another meeting, sir?”

<They’re flying out to a lake. I don’t trust them not to cause trouble. That would reflect poorly on me. Breathe down their necks. You called yourself my secretary. That is a charming little way to put it. Do humans generally treat their secretaries like this?>

“Sometimes.” They’re not supposed to.

* * *

Flying made her motion sick. 

Her first time had been a disaster. She was eight years old. Her family flew cross country to New York. As soon as the seatbelt sign flicked off she’d been hunched over in the lavatory dry heaving. Three different flight attendants took turns holding her hair back. The plane swerved and banked. She clutched their panty hose while trying not to smack her face on a filthy airplane toilet seat.

Yeerk transport ships flew smoother than cheap-seat airlines, but she still gripped the guard rail until green-blue veins bulged on the backs of her hands. She had wanted to bury her head between her knees when she got zipped up to the Pool Ship, but at least that was over relatively quickly. A straight shot up.

They flew slower inside Earth's atmosphere. This was choppier.

A hork bajir approached. She saw him coming but still flinched when he opened his beak.

“Ma’am,” He spoke galard, “The captain wanted to inform you that we’re going to land in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” God, what was his name? She was pretty sure he was that Estril guy. “Let me know when it’s time to disembark or whatever.”

Despite the ravages of nausea, Gina actually had a better than average day. When she joined in on Sharing meetings she spent the entire time with people eyeballing her cleavage and talking to her like she was some valley girl who spent a little too much time huffing hair bleach. And that was just from other yeerks. Up here -- aside from a few stuck up wannabes in gold uniforms -- everyone treated her like she was much more important than she actually was. People whispered about where Visser Three commissioned her from. Maybe she was a general who worked with him during his conquest of the Arn? An old poolmate? Maybe they infested gedd together?

Gedd wrangling bonded people like nothing else.

She caught her laugh before it could start. Who even were the Arn?

She was so busy wondering that she forgot to keep her eyes on the window. It helped with motion sickness. She heard a series of hollow thunks like someone knocking over a rack of basketballs onto the gym floor. She shrieked. 

The window was splotched red and feathery, plastered down with viscera. It turned the sunlight pink.

“Ugh,” A woman said behind her, “We hit another flock of geese. Someone better hose us off when we land or else the taxxons will go nuts.”

Gina stared deeply into the tops of her satin pumps until they were safely landed. They had little white bows. Decorative only, they didn’t actually tie.

Gina had the option to stay aboard. She told them to have fun on their Cessna. 

A squad of park rangers greeted her. They fired off sharp salutes. Their polyester national park shirts caught the ships backdraft like sails. “The areas been secured, Ma’am. We received Visser Three’s memo.”

The Memo. God. She’d woken up with it sitting outside her door with today’s breakfast. Eggs and bacon. High protein, low carb. Atkins Diet. Her fingers turned the briefing paper translucent with lukewarm grease. 

Visser Three didn’t care much about where the pool water came from or how much they took so long as it ended up where he wanted it. What mattered to him was that those sly andalites didn’t cut off their access to easy water supplies. They lurked in the woods, he said, and everyone better keep an eye out. Any animals acting strangely were to be inhumanely destroyed.

Visser One’s nosy soldiers had him on edge.

“I’ll let him know how diligent you’ve been.”

“Would you like to come to the ranger station, ma’am? This can take a while and we have air conditioning. And drinks.”

“Do you have ginger ale?” Being back on solid land made her head reel just as badly as taking off did.

They did. 

She needed it. 

The watchtower listed in the wind like a sorority girl outside a sports bar. Gina’s wooden chair squeaked when she stretched. The windows were covered with mosquito netting. No glass. She could look over the choppy water as the transport ship dropped trow and dipped its tube into the lake. An invisible funnel pulled it upward with a spray of white foam. Were there grinders in there to deal with the fish or plants that getting sucked up? It wasn’t a barren lake.

She took a sip out of her plastic cup. It tasted flat.

She spent her next several trips to the lake the same way. They were a lot less fun than the kind she was used to. No bikinis allowed at the yeerk invasion front. Not that she could wear one. Purple and yellow bruises were splotched right above her tailbone. Her knees looked even worse, though they hurt less. 

Her dowdy pantsuits covered it all.

Today was different. Visser Three swung back and forth between wanting to micromanage the entire invasion and not giving a shit. Apparently on one of the days he kept her home to run paperwork -- though it was actually just listening to him gripe -- some lucky guy made a break for it. Visser Three chewed his staff out for incompetence. Literally. Now he decided to supervise things personally.

Gina received orders to do what she always did. So, she made water cooler talk with a woman in a National Forest Service t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.

“I heard that we’re getting a plant in the writers’ room for Star Trek: Voyager. Do you think they might try slipping in anything, you know, real?”

Various yeerk ships hung in the air like decorations on a baby’s mobile. This far away they looked like she could hold them comfortably under one arm.

“I don’t think that’s allowed.” Gina shrugged. “I would scream if I saw a hork bajir on prime time, though.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Do you think they’d use a rubber suit or-”

The CB radio attached to the wall crackled to life, unintelligible. The park ranger grabbed it and clicked the button. “What? Repeat that.”

A voice came through, garbled. “Something’s stuck in the suction tank. It’s big. We think it’s alive.”

“A person?”

“No,” The static hissed like a hot comb on wet hair, “An andalite.”

Regina hauled down the watchtower’s stairs as fast as her shoes allowed. She was surprised to find Visser Three didn’t beat her to the ship.

A woman stationed in front of a series of monitors saluted. “Ma’am, there’s something very strange in tanker three. We would have informed the Visser, but…”

“But?”

“He was engaged in conversation with a presumed andalite and no one was willing to interrupt.”

He’d been ordering animals to be gunned down all week. Was he getting into a staring contest with a deer? An owl?

“If you could just take a look, we need your permission to vaporize any lifeforms in the tanks.” She motioned towards the screen.

It looked like an outtake from _Cops_ , grainy and indecipherable. Irregularly shaped blobs floated in the water. Everytime Gina assumed some blob was what she was meant to see, it petered out. They were lucky to have cameras there at all. Normal people didn’t put those in their septic tanks or their water coolers. Still, could it kill a race of alien invaders to invest in better equipment than her Papa used to film family Disneyworld trips in the eighties?

“Are you positive it’s not a log or-”

What was a head surfaced. Distinctly. Regina covered her mouth.

“Exactly.”

She whipped around. “And what do you expect me to do about an andalite? I don’t care if Visser Three is getting declared Emperor and getting married at the same time. I promise he cares more about the andalites. Go get him!”

Right as she gave the command, her feet slid out from under her. Her funny bone bashed the security console on her way down. 

The ship moved.

A hork bajir popped his head in through the open door. “We’re under attack!”

Regina wanted to rip her hair out. Of all the lousy times for something like this to happen. Then again, she corrected herself, these were not unrelated issues. She still wanted to beat the wall.

Gina braced her hands against the door frame. People, human and otherwise, surged through the halls. They really should be abandoning ship. A squad of trained andalite warriors would shred them into a liquid slurry. The ship momentarily righted itself, only to suddenly lurch hard enough to send a taxxon skittering by down the hall on its belly. Gina released her terror grip on the counter and took the fall gracefully. She slapped the switch on the wall to close the door. She wasn’t about to get pureed.

The power went out. They plunged into darking.

“Ma’am?”

“Doesn’t this place have emergency lights?” Sears department stores did, but yeerks didn’t?

“It’s supposed to.”

They couldn’t see, but they still had ears.

At first Gina thought it was a commotion from outside. There were groans and twangs and crashes, a rising tide of sound, getting louder until it might as well be as a thought speak pounding in her skull. Gina felt the woman grasp at her arms. She squeezed her back. 

And then, let there be light.

A seam appeared on the ceiling. It widened. Her eyes adjusted. The sky was cloudless blue. The ship tore open like a wide, vomiting mouth. She thought about vomiting, because at that moment the water tank split and hundreds of thousands of cubic gallons spurted free.

How did the andalites do that? She looked over to the woman to wonder aloud, but when she saw the wet terror on her face she realized they were both already screaming. She just couldn’t hear over the rip of metal and rush of water.

The spray aimed down, then slowly rose parallel with the ship. It was wetter than a Niagara Falls boat tour. They were falling. Her hair floated above her as they dropped.

When they hit the ground she lost the ability to hear altogether.

It was like getting dragged into thick mud. Later a guard told her it was like the crumple zone on a car. The floors underneath sandwiched together while leaving the top intact. Even as the ship burned, the deluge kept Gina and her nameless yeerk companion relatively safe. 

Neither of them could hear the rescue parties with their ringing ears. A park ranger hauled her out of the ship. 

The Sharing kept several charter busses on call. By the time they rescued Gina, there was already a shuttle system worked out to ferry everyone back home. Gina sat in the front. When they stopped for gas she got a bag of Takis and ate the entire thing. She didn’t share a single one.

When she got back to the pool, her shoes were still wet.

She sat down on her couch. A pop-up appeared on her T.V. screen. An incoming call from Visser Three. She considered declining it, but whatever he planned to do to her for fucking this up was only going to be worse if she avoided him.

She hit ‘accept’.

He appeared on the screen, but wasn’t paying her a lick of attention. He twiddled with something on his own computer. From the background, he was on the Pool Ship.

She cleared her throat. It was mucusy from being stuck in a freezing bus while dripping wet. “Sir?”

He flicked his eyes around. <Regina? Good to see you survived.>

“Thank you, sir.”

<I’ll be busy late into the night interrogating these worthless traitors. I doubt I’d have time to visit you anyway.>

“Oh.”

<Take this time to freshen up. I’ll be down early tomorrow and expect the pleasure of your company. Understand?>

As if she wasn’t bruised enough already. “Yes, sir.”

<Good.> He paused. <Now you must see what I mean about the frustrations of leadership.>

“Huh?”

He sneered. It flared the three-fold slits on his face. <You kept the mission on track well enough, but Visser One’s simpering morons managed to ruin it by letting andalites in.>

Visser One? Oh. Regina unclenched her teeth for the first time all evening.

<I need to return to my work. I’ll expect you in my private quarters in the morning.> He cut off the transmission.

She let her head loll back against the couch, blindly pawing towards the end table. There was an intercom button built in. She pressed it.

“Someone get me a ginger ale. Now, please."


	5. The Message

**Please state your name for the record.**

Her name was Cassandra Sweet, but generally people called her Cassie. 

She was on a first name basis with everyone from hork bajirs to british royals to ox herders who didn’t own televisions. Some people preferred calling her Ms. Sweet. Fine by her. She appreciated people taking her seriously when she was doing lobbyist work, but Cassie also knew that sometimes it paid not to be the scariest girl in the room. Just Cassie could get a lot done.

She felt self-conscious in front of the jury. Even several years into this strange new world, her own ability to command attention startled her. She knew her voice would lend weight that, for instance, Vice Principal Chapman’s might not. She always tried to do the right thing with what she’d been given. So she came no matter how out of her element she was. 

She stowed a bottled water in her purse before leaving her hotel room today. Cassie got nervous dry mouth. She’d be parched. Specifically, she brought her reusable metal thermos. She chewed her lip over it, but Cassie knew that when people saw her toting something new they sold out overnight. She tried to be conscientious about purchased. 

Someone had to save the whales, right?

Honestly, Cassie looked back fondly on the week she was testifying about. Everyone loved hearing this story and she didn’t mind telling it. Meeting her first friendly alien. Well, actually Ax was pretty standoffish back then, not that she blamed him. She still spun in as a positive encounter.

In the moment, Ax’s distress call overwhelmed her. It knocked her unconscious. Thank goodness Jake caught her before she cracked her skull on the footboard of Rachel’s bed. When she woke up, she only cried for fear instead of pain.

After her fainting spell, she sat criss-cross on Rachel’s bedroom floor. The boys already left. She rested her forehead on Rachel’s shoulder and rewatched the tape Jake told them to keep. It couldn’t stay at his house because Tom-

Everyone understood why. 

Her eyes were closed, but Rachel bolted up and nearly dropped Cassie on her face.

“Rachel?”

“I know that girl!” Rachel jabbed the screen.

“What?”  
“Look!”

Cassie did. She saw a teenager -- maybe even a college student -- with blonde hair in a high ponytail. It curled, but not tightly. She stood in the background, paused by the VCR with a piece of andalite spaceship clutched to her chest. She wore a Sharing t-shirt. Part of the beach clean up crew.

“I saw that girl with Mr. Chapman that night when he almost gave me to Visser Three. Her outfit was way uglier, but it’s definitely her. She was hanging around the hork bajir. I think she works for Visser Three.”

“Weird.” Cassie’d never seen her before. She’d recognize her. Her nose was pretty big. The nice word for it was striking. “Maybe he has her keep tabs on Sharing stuf. He can’t really chaperone field trips. Environmental activism isn’t the worst thing Visser Three could make them to do. Should we mention it to Jake?”

“Maybe. Who knows who she is? Finding out where the important yeerks hang out is smart either way. But,” Rachel sniffed, “I have to say, yeerks don’t know a thing about fashion. That yellow makes her look jaundiced.”

Cassie smiled. “I think it makes her look tan.”

“You could pull of that yellow. She can’t.”

“I don’t think I look good in a Sharing shirt.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Rachel kicked her ankle gently.

It reminded Cassie of the sleepovers they had before the war.

* * *

Visser Three didn’t blame Gina for being outsmarted at the lake. What was one teenage girl against a band of highly trained andalite commandos? Better yet, she provided a scapegoat so he didn’t have to admit he got played too. <I am aware of the limits of your kind. Andalites keep their women out of combat. Sensible. I intend similar for you.>

Whatever. Still better than trial by tailblade. She had more important things to worry about than yeerk sexism. Or andalite sexism. Yeerks didn’t even have sexes; they borrowed their hosts.

Gina was on her feet from her alarm ringing to her head hitting the pillow. She hadn’t gotten reassigned yet. Instead, she juggled twenty tedious little projects too boring for Visser Three. There were sanitary complaints about taxxon slime trails, hork bajir hosts fuming over being left out of lunch schedule decisions, and protests flooding in after a showing of Star Wars: A New Hope. Now all the movies played in the theater were supposed to be pre-screened for anti-empire sentiment.

She kicked herself for missing the final showing. Not that she had time.

Gina scribbles verged on unreadable. She was taking shorthand minutes for one of the rare round table meetings Visser Three actually dained to attend. Gina never learned professional shorthand. She used an english-galard pidgin popularized by yeerks stuck in the bodies of schoolgirls who really loved passing notes about top secret intergalactic matters. Akrass went wild for it. 

She hurried to keep up with the sub-vissers’ arguments. They were bickering over pool schedules. Yeerks with bodies needed to take a dip every three days, but it wasn’t just for a bite to eat. Sub-vissers took the social temperature. Yeerks without bodies had too much free time. Pool dwelling randos got antsy if they were left to their own devices too long. Dissent must be squashed. Yeerks whining over water pressure easily became yeerks muttering vissers didn’t remember where they came from. Scheming came naturally to yeerks. Mutiny waiting to happen, all of them.

Blah, blah, blah. 

Visser Three put a lot of importance in making sure everyone toed the line, so that’s what the meeting was about. God, it was boring.

It’d already gone on for forty five minutes. No one could hammer out when the rotations should begin and end. Compromise was beyond them.

“My host cannot go missing at five in the afternoon.” A woman flipped her hair. It was permed straight. “She has obligations.”

“Obligations?” An old man scoffed. “It’s a therapy session! What do you even talk about in there without raising suspicions?”

“None of your business! She’s been attending for five years before I got her without one missed appointment. Suddenly ending it would look bizarre. Should I say that I’m cured?”

“Yes! What better recommendation of the Sharing is there than how we saved your life?”

A middle schooler butted in. “Why isn’t your therapist infested?”

“You leave Kevin out of this!”

“Oh, _Kevin_?”

This would have been a good time for Visser Three to shut it down. Remind everyone that sub-vissers decide which liabilities are allowed in their day jobs. Or maybe he’d tell Mrs. Doctor’s Appointment to get her house in order and assign her the time slot just for annoying him. 

There was a far off look on his face. He’d been quiet since the meeting started.

“How dare you!” The woman exclaimed, “I was Sub-Visser Twenty Nine when you were still wriggling in the spawning pool.”

“Oh, so you’re saying you haven’t moved up a single rank since 1989?”

<Be quiet. You’re giving me a headache.>

Everyone gawked. He never scolded people at a reasonable volume.

“Sir?” Sub-Visser Twenty Nine asked.

Everyone held their breaths. Visser Three’s face slackened. His eyelids sagged.

Suddenly, he stabbed his tail blade through the paperwork on the table. People jerked their hands off the desk to save their fingers. He knocked over someone’s hot coffee into their lap and they fell backwards slapping their steaming pants. Regina kicked her rolling chair into the corner with her notes clutched to her chest.

His tantrum wasn’t over. Visser Three slammed his hands over his floppy andalite ears. Regina copied. 

Visser Three’s thoughtspeak wailing echoed inside them like a fire alarm. Her head felt ready to split down the middle. Controllers raked their scalps and moaned. Regina’s eyes watered and her nose ran. 

As suddenly as it started, it ended. Visser Three braced himself on the table, but it listed under his weight like a sinking ship pulled down by a sea monster.

Regina wiped her face on her sleeve. The white shirt turned red. Her nose was bleeding. “Sir,” Her mouth tasted coppery. No one else had the nerve to speak. “Visser Three, should I page a doctor?”

He didn’t lash out. He didn’t even raise his tail off the ground. <No. No, I’m well. Plans have changed.>

Sub-visser’s cowered under the table. Only the middle schooler had the guts to peak out.

<You’re all dismissed. Return to your stations. Put out the word: there is a new andalite stranded on earth and he told us where to find him.>

His shook like Bambi on ice. He tugged Gina’s hair on his way out of the ruined room, but only long enough for her to get the message. She followed him. He was sluggish enough for her to keep up easily.

<I hadn’t predicted anyone survived the Dome Ship crash. They’re meant to separate from the hull in a state of emergency, but it should have cracked during planetary entry. To say nothing of the crater it would have made on impact. My own folly. This planet is seventy five percent water. It softens a blow.> He eyes were wild, stalks flicking every which way. For a second they both landed on her. They were bloodshot -- blue black lines threading green sclera.

She looked at him.

<You’re a mess.> He rubbed his palm over her mouth. His fur made her lips itch. His hand came away stained wine from her oxidizing blood. <Go clean up and meet me in my office. We commence the search at dawn.>

* * *

Regina’s lungs hurt when Visser Three got on top of her. It felt like her ribs were like a solo cup someone squeezed until two sides could touch. It was bound to crunch and break sometime. She could breathe -- he still put most of his weight on the bed -- but it was a thin whistle. She occupied herself with other things. She was out of coffee creamer. Needed to order some before her breakfast arrived. Her body was one place, acting like she enjoyed his attention, and her brain another.

When he finally pulled out she pressed her face into the blankets to cover her wheezing. It was harder to breathe that way and the sheets were wet with drool, but she didn’t want him to hear her hacking like a pack-a-day smoker.

She’d kill for a hit from an inhaler. 

Someone reinforced her bed frame. It handled him better than she could. It barely complained when he sunk into the mattress, stretching his humanoid body forward so he was laying on both his stomachs.

He never cared if she took a second to steady herself, so buried her face in a dryer blanket. The bed was soft enough to drown in. 

A rabbity part of her was always aware of his movements. She was a bunny living under the shadow of a hawk. She could feel the subtle shift of sweat matted blankets as his breath dropped down to normal. It slowed further. He dozed.

His hand prodded the sorest part of her spine. <What do you suppose I should do with this new andalite once I hunt him down?>

She propped her head up on her arm. The sheets dug red wrinkles in her cheeks.

<I asked you a question.> He pressed a knuckle into her back.

“Don’t know. I don’t really need a new body.”

He eased up. <No, yours is quite suitable for your position. I however, might be on the market.>

“Why?”

<Why?> He rubbed his cheek. Sweat made his fur stick up like a hedgehog. <No, a little fool like you wouldn’t understand. I’ve had this body for twenty years. Longer than you’ve been alive. Yeerks don’t age nearly as fast as andalites. My tail may be as quick as the day I claimed it, but it only takes one mistimed strike for a younger, faster yeerk to shoot my head off. No Visser in his right mind would die with his host, no matter how prized.> He had bags under his eyes. <Andalite’s hooves go dull as they age.>

“I could polish them for you.”

He blinked all four eyes. 

She blinked back.

<So you could, pet.> He went silent again. <You’d look lovely enough down there. Still, it wasn’t an issue when I first won this body.>

Regina was a nineteen year old girl. She knew what fishing for compliments sounded like, especially from the kind of old man who expected her to provide them.

“Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but,” And here came the lies. Like sucking up to the football coach. “I don’t think you need it. Not that you wouldn’t be able to be scary in any body you wanted, but I like yours now. Your shoulders are so broad and you really are my favorite shade of blue. It’s very manly. I’d hate to lose that.” Her favorite color was yellow. 

<Really, now?> He squared his shoulders.

“It’s just so vivid. I never seen someone so naturally navy blue.” 

Humans didn’t come in that color. It’s not like she partied with andalites on the reg.

<I’ve worked hard to take care of my host. Then, of course, you know how well I look after my belongings.>

Her neck twitched when she nodded. He leaned too high up on her spine when he was climbing onto her.

<Twenty years is a very long time to be with a single host. One grows attached.>

* * *

All her old Sharing shirts were snipped into crop tops. She stole a new one to hide her speckled bruises. It was too big. She tucked it into her shorts.

“Do you need some water?”

Regina jumped back. She was resting on her metal detector and her fear sent it flying across the sand. He scared the shit out of her. “Oh, thank you,” Temrash, “Tom.”

He thought she’d give him a helping hand someday. Sucking up to her was as good as sucking up to Visser Three. As if. His hand was outstretched and offering a bottled water still dripping from the cooler. “No prob.”

She knocked it back. Her sore throat spasmed. She nearly gagged. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

“Slow down, killer. The license plates and coke cans aren’t going anywhere.”

She looked at him. His eyes flicked to some nearby uninfested new members.

“Well excuse me for caring about the environment.”

“You’re excused.”

“Found anything interesting?” She asked between tiny sips.

He shrugged. “A whole cache of spoons under a bench. Along with some needles.”

Gina grimaced. “Wonderful.”

“Yeah, had to inform a sub- uh- supervisor about that one.”

Before he could tell her what unfortunate soul had to pick through that mess his walky talky -- shoved into the pocket of his cargo shorts -- crackled to life.

“Code: Hollywood. All full members to the west dunes.”

Temrash picked up her metal detector and slung it over his shoulder.

The beach was spread out. They had to put some serious pep in their step to make it over the sand hills fast enough to please the sub-vissers without breaking into a trot that would alert the humans. Gina slipped on the way down. Her flip flop twisted hard to the left. Temrash caught her elbow so she didn’t fall on her butt.

They came upon a crowd. Gina gasped.

A thick panel of metal was half submerged in the sand, left behind by low tide. It was pocketed with scratches from spending the last month and a half floating in the pacific. Still, the delicate, tightly packed script carved on it was unmistakably alien. More than that, it was alien even to Gina with all her experience filing paperwork for an interplanetary empire. This was written by andalites.

Curious camera crews crested the hill behind them. No one moved to intervene. This was enough to make yeerks break character.

Gina squared her shoulders. “We need to move this, immediately.”

A man she didn’t recognize held up a hand to shut her down. “It’s fine. We have a cover story in place if they get any pictures.”

Gina copied him, hovering her hand in his face. “And do you have Visser Three’s clearance to expose us on the eight o’clock news tonight?”

“Well-”

“Well nothing. I come over here and everyone’s standing around twiddling their thumbs. You,” She gestured to a gaggle of teenage boys, “Start digging. The rest of you run interference. We have unifested members at this beach clean up. Just because we have a Plan B ready doesn’t mean our Plan A needs to be blowing the lid off this whole operation.”

They stared at her like she’d threatened to toss them in a taxxon pit. She remembered being in their position. Her old yeerk never liked going out her way to get things done either. She rather pal around with humans and play in the surf.

None of them would ever make it as sub-vissers.

The man looked ready to protest.

Tom stepped forward. “You heard her. Move.”

* * *

An Andalite needed a boat like a fish needed a bicycle. It went completely against their nature. For once, Gina wasn’t the only one looking green around the gills. 

Visser Three holed himself up in the captain’s quarters as soon as they boarded. No one was allowed in or out. All messages were delivered through Gina, who sat by the door and poked her head out when someone came knocking. Visser Three paced short circles in the little room. Occasionally he stopped to lean forward on the map-table. 

“Sir, should I have someone get you some water?” She’d been knocking back ginger ale by the case.

He whipped around and his tail came with him, close enough she could feel the breeze of its passing. She turtled her head into her shoulders.

<In case you failed to notice: we are surrounded by water.>

Actually, they were surrounded by wood paneling from 1968.

This would be much easier in Visser Three stayed on the Blade Ship, but no. He wanted to be ready at a moments notice. Unfortunately, sometimes low tech was better. Hordes of research vessels borrowed from local universities scanned in a grid formation off Santa Barbara’s coast. Bug fighters’ radar didn’t do half as good a job piercing the water.

Gina and Visser Three rode with them every day from take off until Visser Three’s thin andalite legs started quivering. That was the queue to call a spaceship and get ferried home. He pressed his palms over his main eyes.

She didn’t know why he hated this so much. Maybe andalites couldn’t swim.

He slouched. <Regina, go check the scanners. Those simpering wastes of hosts have probably all fallen overboard looking at those fleshy jumping fish again.>

Dolphins were mammals. “Yes, sir.”

She shut the door gently. Someone slammed it the first day they were on aboard and he blew a hole in it with his dracon beam.

It felt like a terrarium in there. When Gina was hit by the crisp ocean air she took a deep breath. So much fresher than the beach, no seaweed rot smell. The sun glinted off the ocean like a thousand sapphires. She shielded her eyes.

She flagged down the first controller she passed. “Any word?”

He shrugged. “The Pacific’s pretty big.”

“Well yeah, this isn’t like getting a toy off the bottom of a swimming pool. Tell that to the Visser.”

“Isn’t that your job?”

Who knew what her job was? Not her. “Which way to the scanners?”

He jerked his thumb. “Up near the front.”

Super helpful.

She was halfway up the deck when a man skidded into her so hard he knocked her into a decorative floaty.

“Excuse you!” She rubbed her sternum.

The man caught himself of a rail. “Sorry, no time! Off to get Visser Three. We found someone big and it’s sure not the Titanic.” 

He bolted and she raced after him. He made it to the door first, but she was the one brave enough to barge in. “Sir, they may have found the ship.”

Neither Gina or her attacker had the chance to elaborate. The allure of andalites was more than enough to give him his second wind. They glued themselves to the wall to avoid getting trampled.

If the rocking boat wasn’t enough to make Gina sick, watching Visser Three morph definitely pushed her over the edge. Normally she was lucky enough to have her back facing him when he was up to that particular nightmare. She ran away from fights, after all. Now it was forced upon her.

He ballooned out, swelling until his skin was tight enough to rupture. Stretch marks cut jaggedly through his fur. Quintupling in size in seconds does that. Suddenly his skin pulled away entirely -- like a tablecloth ripped off solid wood -- folding into a point she couldn’t see from the angle where she stood. She watched his thin andalite legs get enveloped by his expanding body. Before they completely disappeared, he hauled himself over the edge into the open ocean. 

Everything lurched when he slipped off the deck. His weight destabilized them. Regina groped at a doorknob to keep from sliding in with him. The boat bounced back in the other direction. She heard the sailor crack his skull on a metal window frame.

A few more violent jolts and then the boat righted itself. The deck was soaked. So were Gina’s clothes. One of her shoes was ripped off by the tide and swept away. She sighed and took off her other shoe. It was ruined anyway.

She jabbed the man hard enough to flip him on his side.

He stirred.

She tried to recall what she learned years ago in her Red Cross babysitter’s first aid classes.

* * *

The Blade Ship hung over them like a battleaxe above the chopping block. 

Gina’s closed her eyes, but she felt the shadow drape over her. She’d been sitting on the deck, letting her clothes dry the the sun. It baked them crisp with a sea salt crust. Her hair was even stiffer. It crunched when she touched it

On board, she was greeted by a complete hush. In comparison to the fresh sea smell, everything in there reeked of unchanged mouse traps. Someone split open a taxxon. She wrinkled her nose.

“Where is he?”

Visser Three wasn’t in the bridge.

A hork bajir grimaced. He was even worse to look at than usual. “You don’t want to go in there.”

“Do you?”

He cocked his head. “What?”

“Someone has to do it. Are you going to for me?”

“No.”

“Then tell me where he is.”

He hemmed and hawed. “Somewhere in the back. Follow the blood trail.”

She understood what he meant when she walked through the sliding door and immediately had to hop on one foot to avoid a puddle of gore. She edged along the wall, minding her hair to avoid anything splattered at head level. She wanted to think about it as tiptoeing through a maze, tried to frame it that way in her own head, but it didn’t really work. The death-stench was getting stronger. She passed a pile of something visceral and had to cover her mouth. Her hands were salty as the ocean.

The mess slackened off a bit after she passed the remains of some poor controller. She couldn’t tell his species. Her mouth still felt pre-vomit wet. She swallowed before knocking on the door.

It slid open. The pure malice that wafted out made her wish she hung back with that dead body.

<Remember to have someone clean the ship once we return. I don’t want anyone disturbing me.>

“Yes, sir.”

All the lights were off. She had the glow from the door before it shut. She saw Visser Three’s glinting blue side. It was the same one she’d been sitting next to for months now. Then, it was dark. Once again, her back was to the wall.

<If we sailed out here a day ago I would have had him.>

He was closer this time. She heard a strange, scratchy noise as he walked. After a moment, she recognized glass scratching along the floor when he crushed it under hoof. It wasn’t that the lights were simply off. He broke them.

It must hurt to step in something like that. Horses wore shoes for a reason.

<If I didn’t know it was pure stupidity instead of malice, I would have every yeerk in this operation starved for treason. I would oversee it myself. They cost me a body.>

She slid down to the floor, keeping her legs tucked under her. She needed to be as small a target as possible and didn’t want to risk squatting in glass.

He was quiet for a moment. Gina held her breath.

<This wasn’t originally the body I planned on taking.>

“What?” She blurted out, then slapped her hand over her mouth.

He wasn’t bothered by the interruption. <Twenty years ago I laid eyes on Aristh Elfangor. I knew right then I had to have him. He was a perfect specimen of what an andalite should be. Brilliant coat, green eyes, a tail fast enough to send heads rolling. He was brave and noble and hopeful. It would have been a pleasure to subjugate him. Instead, I caught a War-Prince older than the empire itself. I am not exaggerating.>

Gina was lucky she already had her hands over her mouth. It was the only thing to keep her from shrieking when his tailblade impacted with the metal door with a cymbal crash.

The door slid open. She flailed backwards. His front legs were inches from her nose. He stepped over her and his furry stomach brushed her head. She ducked.

<Come, Regina. We’ve landed.>


	6. The Predator

**Please state your name for the record.**

His name was Marco Pérez O’Connell, but whenever anyone talked about a ‘Marco’ people knew it was him. He was kind of like Madonna that way. Or Prince. Everybody knew which Marco made headlines.

The rest of the Animorphs might be edgy up there. Not him. Marco spent every Saturday since the war ended rehashing this story on late night TV. He knew what he needed to say backwards, forwards, or starting in the middle. The defense lawyer was a slime ball, but nobody was worse than Nancy Grace.

This particular part was always rough. Definitely one of his least favorite moments from the entire war. Well, any part involving his mom was painful -- save for freeing her and stepping on that slug Visser One -- but the first time he saw her was the closest Marco ever came to dying. 

It nearly gave him a heart attack.

People always asked: Was he really positive it was her the moment he laid eyes on her? Wasn’t she far away? Hadn’t it been a long time?

The thing was, wouldn’t they recognize their own moms? She hadn’t left Marco’s mind a for day since she ‘died’. If anything, she’d been dominating his thoughts even more since the Animorphs formed. Every time he morphed he thought of her. Demorphed, too. He thought about how bad things got for his family when she drowned. How he couldn’t put everyone through that a second time.

So yeah, when he spotted her he knew instantly.

To be honest, it was pretty rough trying to recall anything else from that night. He remembered their escape. He remembered thinking about how pissed Visser Three would be. The rest was a blur of ‘my mom’s alive’.

He guessed he noticed the only other human there, if only to mentally compare them. His mom had always been a short lady. Marco comes by that honestly. This girl had at least a head on her. She wore red. His mother wore gold. She held back. His mom -- no, her yeerk -- strolled along like she wasn’t scared of anything.

That’s all he remembers, your honor.

* * *

Visser One earned her rank in a single leap. She went from Sub-Visser Four Hundred Nine to number One in a day.

Visser One killed three out of every ten recruits she received because she didn’t want unlucky soldiers.

Visser One played Russian Roulette with a dracon beam and won.

Every yeerk knew the mythos surrounding Visser One. She was the reason they even had the chance to take over the world in the first place. Even humans heard about her. If only because she was the one to blame for this mess. 

Yeerks venerated her and humans loathed her. Visser Three had to be jealous.

Regina heard all the goss about her back when she was infested. She never met her. Neither had Akrass 573. Regina, for one, wanted to keep it that way.

Visser One was brutal. Visser Three ate people; Visser One found someone else did it for her so she could watch. It was her idea to go so against the classical invasion plan and invade Earth under the cover of a new age cult. No one realized Visser One was about to end their sad little lives until after she did it. At least Visser Three’s pride was predictable. Gina never had to wonder what he thought.

In what might have been the most whisper about upset of the year, the Emperor personally pulled Visser One out of the Earth invasion to go head up a new one. Visser Three was enstated in her place. 

Now Visser One was coming home. 

The whisper network said she threw a fit over all the andalite drama. She screamed Visser Three was running her invasion into the ground. She put her new mission on hold to personally come back to Earth and clean house.

Visser Three had to play host for her during her stay. Given his killer bad mood over everything, Gina got deputized as hostess. Visser Three took his anger out on an increasingly paranoid herd of controllers. They were ducking under tables every time he entered a room because his tailblade was never far behind. It fell on Gina’s shoulders to stock a minifridge for the fourteenth most powerful person in the universe. 

It would have been easier if Visser Three hadn’t taken over her old apartments and outfitted it for horses, but obviously he wasn’t about to give up the best rooms on the pool ships just because she technically outranked him. Gina was having furniture flown up from a glitzy LA hotel that would make Princess Diana say she was being a little too posh.

That was to say nothing about scheduling food and the transport and time to let Visser Three show off without hanging around long enough to fall for Visser One’s jibes. Attacking another Visser could get someone demoted.

Gina was going to have a stress induced bald spot by the time Visser One left. 

She pulled her feet into her chair. Visser Three’s tailblade was doing low sweeps that could cut her ankles if she didn’t dodge. “Sir, can I get you some water?”

He waved a vague affirmative. He paced the room at a speed slightly short of a run. <Have the Bug Fighters been repainted?>

“Yes, sir.” She rushed across in front of him like she was trying to avoid an oncoming bus.

<And the filters at the in-ground pool have been changed?>

“Two days ago, sir.” She cranked the faucet to fill Visser Three’s marble trough. The first spray platted against her skirt.

<The hostless yeerks need to be given some stimulation.>

“There are new books on the pool computers, sir.”

<Good, good.> He didn’t look like he thought it was good. He trotted over and dipped a hoof in the drink. 

Gina didn’t move fast enough and found herself trapped between him and the wall.

He pulled her hair. Not enough to make her squeak, but it hurt.  
“Sir?”

<You have things under control don’t you? Just like the great Visser One.> He yanked like he might rip out a chunk just for fun.

“Sir!”

<I shouldn’t punish competence.> He sighed. <It’s hardly your fault those oafs are letting the andalite slip through their fingers like sand.> He let up.

She didn’t back away. Fear encouraged him.

<Regina, take a memo for me. Send it to the Sub-Vissers. The rabble need to know what’s expected of them.>

Once she settled back in her desk chair Gina found her hands shaking too hard to type. She took a deep breath to ground herself and relaxed her jaw.

He’d already been talking for a minute, but the way he rambled she hadn’t missed anything important.

<-I won’t be humiliated because they’d rather spend all their time feeding every one of their hosts impulses instead of doing their jobs.> Hypocrite. <When Visser One arrives I won’t hesitate to have every single one of them executed by dracon beam if they so much as slip on a puddle by the pool.>

Translation: All maintenance crews will be given overtime compensation during Visser One’s stay. Non-optional.

<I don’t care if new hosts have to be kidnapped from their beds. Recruitment numbers will match what they were under her or I’ll never hear the end of it.>

Despite inclement weather, Sharing events should either run longer or occur more often for the coming three weeks. Funding available upon request.

<Anyone caught fraternizing with her staff will have to explain their rationale to me personally.>

That, Gina said word for word.

She wasn’t trying to soften his approach. They would be able to read the subtext. The real dilemma was that he never ever had any helpful advice. He knew about as much about running a hip 90’s youth group as she did morphing. Furthermore, he really didn’t give a shit.

“Anything else, sir?”

He leaned over her shoulder. His eyestalks bobbed. <This should be in galard. Do you expect all my Sub-Visser’s to read english?>

He hit the back of her head so hard her chair rocked.

<Everything needs to be perfect when Visser One arrives. You have no idea what a conniving witch she is. She believes she’s the Kandrona’s gift to the empire because she was the only one available to follow up on a tip about intelligent lifeforms that _I left in the first place_. She’ll take any excuse she can find to report me for misconduct, the traitorous coward. Mark my words, I’ll see her foisted from that position.>

“Do you want to be Visser One someday, sir?”

His eyestalks flicked towards her and she realized it had been one of those moments he was speaking to himself -- or maybe his host -- more than her. <Are you accusing me of envying her, Regina?>

“No, sir! I was just wondering. You’re a hard worker. Ambitious! I bet you didn’t become Visser Three accidentally, is all I meant.”

His shoulders sagged and his tail slipped out of view. <No, I did not. I suppose I do desire what any right minded yeerk does. Who wouldn’t want to be the most powerful general in the empire.>

She nodded.

<But of course, to say I have aspirations for her position would imply I hoped something unfortunate happened to the empires favorite child.>

Gina looked at him. 

He looked at her. 

She realized he was cracking a joke. She forced herself to laugh.

* * *

In space, everyone wore clothes. 

Everyone going au naturale on Earth by choice. This wasn’t normal. Andalite’s never wore clothes, despite being the only kind of alien she met with visible reason between their legs. So for once the weirdness wasn’t on Visser Three’s part. When she heard everyone needed to be refitted for uniforms -- that the state of things wasn’t the universal norm -- she screamed. Hork Bajir wore pants! Taxxons wore teeny tiny vests! Earth was an intergalactic nudist colony!

No one told her until the last minute and they had to pay out the nose, but when Visser One disembarked onto the Pool Ship everyone in Visser Three’s entourage were wearing red, space-age tunics.

Gina paired hers with white tights and a pair of black leather ankle boots. Very Star Trek.

Visser One’s shuttle door was backlight. A rush of steam poured out, that rebreathed air that could make a shuttle feel like a lizard terrarium after only a few hours of flight. Visser One marched walked three steps ahead of her soldiers.

She was kind of short. No more than five foot two. She looked kind of like Gina’s mom: a tan, beautiful, dark haired woman who looked like she could chew glass and not get cut.

<Hello, Visser One.>

“Good afternoon, Visser Three.”

<Allow me to escort you to your interim office.> Visser Three’s fur bristled like it hurt him to speak. Hate rolled off him in waves.

Gina followed them, along with Visser One’s gold plated squadron of goons. They didn’t even look at her. She locked eyes with a member of Visser Three’s security team. He pulled a face. 

So she wasn’t alone in feeling outnumbered on a ship that was ostensibly their territory.

They stopped outside a set of private offices. Gina personally decorated them a week ago. She aimed for something tasteful and minimalist. All the little fixtures -- pens and stablers and paperclips -- were gold to match their uniforms.

<Fetch Visser One some coffee.> He waved his hand in Gina’s face. <It is to my understanding she takes it black.>

Even the coffee pot was metallic gold. Someone prepped this morning, but Gina wanted it hot for the highest ranking military general she’d ever met.

“It’s so nice to see you’re actually utilizing humans now, Esplin.” Visser One didn’t sit down; she just stood next to a desk and her hork bajir orbited her. “I recall during the hand-over you didn’t have a single one in your retinue.”

Esplin?

Visser Three’s tail trembled. <Well, Edriss, it was difficult to find out about their multitude of uses when you were keeping them so close to your heart.>

“How could I resist-”

There was a knock on the door.

Gina slopped coffee onto the counter.

They asked “What?” and <What?> at the exact same time.

It was a taxxon. He wore a little red coat like a monkey with an organ grinder. He said something Gina couldn’t interpret with a gun to her head. Both the Vissers understood. Visser One made to go after him as he clattered out on centipede legs, but Visser Three cut off her escape. <You must be tired from your flight. My secretary will show you to your room. I will handle this.>

If looks could kill Visser One’s would have burned like a dracon beam.

And Gina was left in the lion's den.

Visser One scowled.

“Ma’am, your coffee is ready.”

She took the mug from Gina’s hand and promptly dumped it down the sink. “Well, show me where I’m being locked up now that Esplin has turned my room into a horse pasture.”

Surprisingly, her guards didn’t tag along. They stayed behind, setting up the office. Probably checking the place for wiretaps. Would find the one in the coffee maker?

“I’ve been hearing interesting rumors about what’s been going on in my absence.”

“What kind, ma’am?”

“We have andalites on Earth. They’re multiplying by the day.”

“I know.” Gina stuck her tongue out. “Isn’t it nasty? Visser Three is getting them under control, though.”

“Yes, the esteemed Visser Three. It must be a treat for him. They used to call him Andalite-Lover, after all.”

This was incredibly petty. Was she trying to get Gina to rat out her boss for fumbling the whole andalite issue? He got ninety-nine percent of them in one go when he blew up their spaceship. The rest were just stragglers.

Not that Gina wanted to defend him. This was just ridiculously childish.

Gine decided to keep her mouth shut. She overshared there for a second. This was a rare chance to talk to someone who wasn’t rolling their eyes or kissing ass. What she forgot was that this was someone whose ass she had to kiss. 

They got to Visser One’s room. The door slid open. It was like a Waldorf Astoria suite. Plush furniture and mother of pearl detailing. All the wood was real, no plastic finish in sight.

“It will have to do.” Visser One didn’t spare a glance when she walked in. “You are dismissed.”

The door shut inches from Gina’s nose.

Getting interrogated by middle aged women always made Gina hungry. Reminded her of the first time her mom tried to find out if she was sexually active with her high school boytoy. She heard they were putting in a Panda Express in the Cafeteria. If she said she was getting it for Visser Three they’d hand some for free.

“Oh, secretary.”

Gina froze, then turned around, “Yes, ma’am?”

“Let me know when Visser Three gets back. You know how forgetful career soldiers can be about necessary parts of bureaucracy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Yeah, some orange chicken would definitely hit the spot.

Gina made it halfway to the cafeteria when she noticed something strange. The halls were empty. Absolutely devoid of life. She’d been walking for five minutes without seeing another soul.

She’d think with Visser One on the ship people would actually be at their posts for once. Instead, the Pool Ship was almost like one of those wasps nests in a biology classroom, the kind that had been long empty of any bugs and crumpled like a crepe-paper pinata. The main pool room was a ghost town. The cage doors swung open.

Across the churning sea of slugs Gina saw a taxxon scuttering. 

“Hey!” She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Excuse me! I need to talk to you!”

He stopped and looked at her.

“Yes, you! Get over here!” She waved.

He only took a minute to skitter the half mile around to her side of the pool. God those guys were fast.

Gina was surprised that actually worked.

“Where are all the hosts? Where are the guards? Where the hell is anybody?”

He opened his maw, then closed it, then opened it again. He sputtered in galard, “Andalte bandits.”

She squeaked, whipping her head from side to side, “On the ship?”

“Not yet. Soon. Visser Three is bringing them in.”

“Right now?”

“Yes. You were not- were not informed?”

“No.” She pressed a hand against her forehead. “Nobody tells me anything if Visser Three isn’t lurking behind my back.”

He hummed consolingly.

“Thank you. Okay. Show me where everyone is.”

He took off.

“Not so fast! I’m wearing high heels!”

She ran at a much more reasonable pace. 

They arrived at the top most ship hanger; the one with all the windows.

If the rest of the ship had been a dead hive, this one teemed with activity. Gina and her escort had to leap back to avoid a haircut as several hork bajir zoomed by. Ships were being moved to create a much bigger space than the blade ship actually needed. The roar of thrusters and metal on metal was almost deafening. 

Gina slunk back into the hall. She patted the taxxon on the smooth exoskeleton of his back, then immediately jerked her hand away. The stress was getting to her. “You’re dismissed.”

He slithered away into the turmoil.

An intercom buzzed. “The Blade Ship is here. Prepare to be docked.

People dove into formation. Nobody wanted to be the one ruining Visser Three’s big day. Gina inched into the room, passing behind rows of soldiers. The hanger doors opened. She plastered on a smile.

Visser One stood in the empty space between all the soldiers. Her Soldiers were in a semi-circle around her.

Visser One disembarked.

He looked like the cat who got the canary. Pleasure rolled off him in waves. Gina was used to that from him, but a nearby man went green in the face. Gina rolled her eyes. Visser Three was overbearing. Everyone should be used to it by now.

<Visser One, come to oversee a victory for the empire?>

“Something like that.” Visser One raised her nose. “Show me these so-called andalites.”

Gina tiptoed behind Visser One’s hork bajir.

<Very well. Open the port.>

A tiny porthold on the side of the ship stretched open into a wide glass mouth. The light glinted off it for a moment, but everyone could see the animals cowering inside. Well, five animals and an andalite.

A ramp extended out of the ground to the new door. The Vissers’ entourage approached.

Visser Three excluded, Regina had never seen an andalite. None of the pictures made them out to be so small. Was this one a girl? She heard those were purple. This andalite was slim and baby blue and trembling. It glared at Visser Three with all four eyes. It’s fur fluffed up end like a scared cat.

She only jerked her eyes off it when the gorilla toppled over.

<Why, Visser One,> Visser Three flipped his eyestalks backwards towards Visser Three, <you seem to have frightened the humanoid one.>

"It is called a gorilla," Visser One was at the end of her rope. She talked to him like he was a kindergartener "If you are going to be in charge of Earth, Visser Three, you should at least learn something about the planet."

<And take a human host body, like you did? No, I think not. Human bodies are weak. I much prefer this Andalite host.>

Her pretty face twisted. "I took a human host and learned about the planet and the humans. And because of that I was able to begin the invasion that you have now endangered with your criminal incompetence!"

Visser Three’s tail snapped like a whip. His guards stumbled back.

Visser One squared her shoulders.

Visser Three lifted his chin. <You would like to provoke me, Visser One, but the fact is that I destroyed the Andalite force. I shot down their dome ship. I killed Prince Elfangor myself and heard his dying screams. And now I have eliminated this last, pathetic rabble of Andalites.>

"You want to be Visser One? You think you can take my title?” Visser One pinched her lips like she was holding back laughter. “We shall see. The Council of Thirteen does not like Vissers who make mistakes. And you have made mistakes. Be careful of your own ambition."

With that, she departed. Her soldiers followed her in single file.

Visser Three narrowed his eyes. <She will not be so proud when I deliver six morph capable bodies to the Council.>

The little andalite recoiled, leaping some long spiel about how Visser Three was an Abomination. Gina heard the capital letters. It was the first time any of them spoke in front of her.

Visser Three three cocked his head. <You are a child. Why do the others remain silent? And why do you all still hide in your morphs? Curious. Very curious.>

A child. That explained why he was so shrimpy. Why he was the only one out of morph. Maybe he couldn’t morph at all yet. Gina twisted her fingers into her hair. A little baby andalite in a cage. That shouldn’t shock her. When she was stuck in the cages there were always a few little kids -- elementary schoolers -- crying for their moms. This little andalite’s bluster had to be along the same vein. He was scared.

Visser Three ordered someone to take them to the brig. She followed behind him. He had his fun taunting and flaunting in front of Visser One. Now it was back to Earth.

Still, before Gina could think better of it she asked, “Was he really just a kid?”

Visser Three noticed her for the first time. 

<Yes. It was quite peculiar, wasn’t it. This war has been going on for thirty years, but I never thought I would see the day proud andalites send their children to the front lines.> He paused mid-step. <It isn’t entirely unheard of for arisths to be on Dome Ships. Perhaps the son of some nepotistic War-Prince hoping to give his boy an easy tour of duty.> He snorted. <I should find out who got him aboard. It would be entertaining to rub in his petulant little face.>

Gina rhythmically clenched and unclenched her hands. “What are you going to do with him, sir?”

Visser Three shrugged. Did he ever have a human host? Gina heard yeerks carried over body language from one host to another. Ex-hork bajir filed their nails into sharp points like blades. <As of yet, I’m unsure. I’m content with the body I have. There are things I use it for that wouldn’t be possible in such a juvenile arisths. However, having a few on reserve for when the time comes does tempt me.>

She nodded.

<I might offer you one, but I rather prefer you as you are.>

Another joke. She smiled wearily.

They returned to whatever comfort was provided by Visser Three’s quarters. Gina hobbled out of her high heels. The backs of her ankles leaked something clear and stinging. She hoped calluses would start growing soon.

<I will be making calls to the council. Permit none to disturb me.>

“Yes, sir.” She sank into the soft couch.

He retreated further into his bedroom. Gina was left alone in his parlor.

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

It felt like seconds before Visser Three stampeded back into the room, but she probably dozed off. Gina curled in on herself with her knees to her chest.

<I’ll kill her! I’ll eat her alive.> He glared at Gina. <Follow me, I will need a witness when I explain the execution of a Visser before the Council.>

Gina chased after him into the hallways. Her tights slid on the floor. She hung far enough back to retreat if a fight broke out.

They made it across the Pool Ship in record time. At one point they came across the remains of a taxxon crushed like a centipede under a tennis shoe. Gina pinched her nose as they passed.

<Edriss!> Visser Three knew all the security overrides. Even Visser One’s private rooms were his to invade.

Gina stayed in the hall.

“Good evening, Esplin.” Visser One looked up from her newspaper. She set it on the table beside her armchair. She was surrounded by guards clutching their dracon beams. “Don’t you have underlings to torment?”

<I should take your head for treason!>

“A heavy accusation.”

<What else would you call aiding andalite captives? Going against the very foundations of the Yeerk Empire?>

“I would call that: Something you need proof to claim. You’ll find I haven’t left my room since your little display with the ‘andalite bandits’” She made finger quotes. “Being Visser One requires endless paperwork. I have more important things to do than sabotage you when you’re so adept at doing it yourself.”

<So you’re claiming if we check the cameras we’ll see none of your soldiers releasing a menagerie of creatures into the ship? My soldiers all disabled themselves?>

“Maybe you should pick better men. Mine have been doing their duty here.” She motioned at them.

<They used your escape pod.>

“What a tragic loss. Didn’t you manage to capture them because they stole a bug fighter? I’m no andalite expert, but I hear they’re well versed technologically.”

Visser Three raised his tailblade high above his head. The guards trained their weapons

Visser one sniffed. “Touch me and you’ll be burnt to a crisp before you can even fantasize about morphing. To say nothing of what the Council will do. It might make you feel better for a moment, but it is not my fault you’ve blundered this operation. Remember, I have all these witnesses to vouch for me. What do you have again?” She pointed to Gina. “Your little girl Friday?”

Gina crept further away from the door. This wasn’t her fight. 

<I’ll see you tried for this.> He didn’t slouch, but his tailblade drooped. <Not today, but soon. You’ll realize your mistake in choosing such a defenseless host.>

“I picked my host for my own reasons. You did yours. One of us is actually qualified to run this invasion. It isn’t you.”

<Nevertheless, the Council gave it to me. They were tired of watching you dawdle. This planet and its people are mine conquer.>

“If you say so.” Edriss said. “Now get out of my room.”

* * *

Visser One left with far less fanfare.

Visser Three was a dark cloud leaving everyone on the ship scurrying for cover. No one dared cross between the two factions. In the days leading up to her departure, Gina went to the cafeteria and saw a line of empty tables between ones full of red and gold uniforms. No one announced when they would depart. Gina found out when a man in gold tapped her shoulder.

“The Visser wishes to see you.”

Gina blinked. “Alright?”

“Now.”

“Oh! Okay. Lead the way.” It was the first time one of Visser One’s soldiers spoke to her.

They walked in silence. Gina hoped Visser Three wouldn’t hear about her sleeping with the enemy. Several people turned tail as they passed.

They arrived at the door and it slid open, unlocked. He gestured her forward, but didn’t enter himself.

Visser One drank her coffee black. Presumably a brew she trusted more than Gina’s. Even from across the room it smelled heavenly. “Good afternoon.”

“Hello, ma’am.”

She took a slow sip. “It’s strange; I have no idea who you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“I checked. Almost all the officers who served under me remained where I put them. Visser Three hasn’t bothered to move around anyone important. He’s let my perpetual motion machine run. I suppose it makes sense. He’s never been one for espionage and slow infiltration. Why would he care enough about finding people who can actually do it? He’s too busy playing soldier with all the andalites who keep popping up.”

Gina chewed her lip. She couldn’t defend him. First, she was one hundred percent right. Second, arguing with a Visser was an easy way to get shot.

“You, however, are a little mystery, aren’t you? According to reports, the last yeerk to use that body was a giggling imbecile. Then one day she was gone and Visser Three had a little piece of, what, arm candy? No notice of who you are and where you came from.”

“We met in the pool, ma’am,” Gina blurted out, “I’ve known him for a long time.”

Visser One quirked her lip. “And he put you in a human body? How strange. I didn’t think he had much lost love for them.”

“Would you want a taxxon breathing down your neck all the time?”

She tapped on her mug. A man wielding a coffee pot came over and poured her more. “Fair enough.”

They looked at each other. Gina tried not to break eye contact first.

“Well, I must say he picked out a nice enough body for you. It looks like something I might choose when this one goes stale.” Her gaze drifted down. Gina covered her chest. She looked lower and then back up to her face. “Good for him. Andalite aesthetics must be hard to come by in the empire. It makes sense to diversify.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you. This has been informative. The entire trip has.”

“We were delighted to have you, ma’am.”

“Don’t push your luck.” She waved her away. “You’re dismissed.”


	7. The Hospital

Jake’s fly morph was unlucky. Every time he broke it out something went really catastrophically wrong. Whether he was getting crushed by a rolled up magazine or fried by a Gleet Bio-Filter, Jake was always about thirty minutes from dying.

He had other morphs he disliked. Ants and termites and bees sucked for basically the same reason. Howlers scared the crap out of him-

**Could the witness elaborate? What are Howlers?**

Just some really weird aliens they dealt with one time. It wasn’t important. He shouldn’t have brought it up. Lots of morphs scared him, was what he was trying to say.

Anyway. 

As he was saying: Compared to the really awful morphs, Jake didn’t mind roaches. Sure he always got a little nauseated when he felt his own bones liquifying, but that was a weirdly regular feeling back in the day. It was worth it. Roaches were absolutely utilitarian. Fast and sneaky and not too hard to spy with.

That’s why Jake picked them for their most delicate mission to date. Looking back, a lot was personal. He didn’t want anything to go wrong that might get Tom hurt.

It was a good decision. The little creeps were fast. Jake was able to dodge a wayward shoe coming down on top of him when a woman sat down at the table he was hiding under. His blurry insect vision saw the bright red sole and he shot away with seconds to spare.

“Good evening, Temrash 114.”

“How are you tonight, ma’am?”

And then all that practice using his new morph was a waste, because Jake couldn’t hear a sound.

That voice belonged to his brother.

The woman’s voice slurred like a T.V. with bad reception. “I’m doing fantastic. I just wanted to congratulate you on how well your operation is going. Visser Three is very pleased with all your progress. He’s got his eyes on you. All of them.”

Tom’s legs jolted. “Thanks for letting me know. He’s the one calling the shots.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Temrash, you know how these things work. Your work makes Visser Three look good and in return your name comes up on the sub-visser shortlist.

“Of course -”

“But,” She interrupted him, “If this goes sideways, it doesn’t reflect well on the invasion. Visser Three wouldn’t approve.”

“No. He wouldn’t.”

“So, if you see anything suspicious, anything at all, you need to tell us. I understand it might be tempting not to. No one wants to be the bearer of bad news, but do you know what’s worse?”

“What?”

“Getting eaten. Getting starved. Getting mauled by a tiger. If anything comes up, tell Iniss 226. He will relay it to us. No one plans on shooting the messenger.”

His brother sounded uncomfortable. “Alright.”

“I’m glad we understand each other. I’ve been noticing people not mentioning all sorts of things because they don’t want to be the one to break it to Visser Three. That makes everyone’s jobs harder, because sometimes someone noticing early could prevent an andalite attack.”

Tom shifted.

“I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just trying to be clear.” She sighed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat some of those very tiny jello cups.”

* * *

Everybody knew andalites were claustrophobic. They responded to tight spaces the way humans responded to being dropped alone in the middle of the Atlantic. What’s not so talked about is how nerve wracking it is to be stuck in a with a flinchy andalite.

Regina sat in the corner of Visser Three’s limousine with her knees tucked under her chin. It was important to be as small a target as she could. Her long, silk red dress hissed like fish scales scraped by a knife when it rubbed together. Her eyes darted. Had to keep a line of sight on Visser Three’s twitchy tailblade.

“Sir, do you want us to take a break? We could pull over and you could stretch your legs.”

<Keep going.>

“Yes, sir.”

It took the biggest limo at the rental lot to squeeze Visser Three into the back seat. He was half draped over the seat and shuffling his hooves against the carpet. He scrunched his eye stalks close to his skull to keep them from bumping on the roof, but when the driver hit a pothole they hit the ceiling. He’d been squinting ever since.

“Alright, sir. If someone stops you, what’s your name?”

<Victor Trent.>

“And your reason for being there?”

<The Sharing is considering gifting the hospital several new MIR Machines.>

“MRI Machines, sir.”

<Yes, yes.> He glowered. <I should never have allowed that fool to convince me I needed to attend in morph. It’s a disgrace to warp this body into a frail, feeble human.>

“The conference hall has a lot of windows. We wouldn’t want anyone seeing inside.”

<At least I would have a chance to enjoy myself this evening.>

“Think positive, maybe the andalites will show up and you can wreck the place.”

He stared at her. 

Her face went hot. “Sir, I’m so sorry -”

He cracked up. His eyes crinkled when he smiled. <Are you feeling brave tonight just because soon I won’t be able to slit your throat so easily? I suppose it’s better than you spending the evening whimpering like a child. My persona’s date to this affair should have some measure of charm.>

She let her shoulders relax.

<But don’t forget your place. I may not punish you in public, but I’ll hurt you much worse once we’re alone.>

“Yes, sir.”

A concealed speaker fizzed to life: “We’re twenty minutes from the event, sir.”

Visser Three slumped his shoulders. <Very well.>

Seeing him morph was bad on a good day; it had nothing on watching him morph into a human.

The fifty four total vertebrae horses and andalites shared crunched together into a human’s thirty three. His abs rippled when his front legs slurped inside his torso. For a brief moment his eye stalks shriveled too thin to support his eyes and they hung limply by his cheeks like greasy hair.

His fur thinned rapidly until she saw his blue skin. It turned purple, then pink. 

Gina fiddled with her necklace. It was seven strands of small diamonds. They draped low over her breasts. It kept catching the hair on the nape of her neck.

In the end he sat naked on the leather car seat. He rubbed his cheek. It was smooth.

There was a clothes bag on the seat next to Gina this whole ride, but she was never ready to be confronted with his human morphs limp dick. At least as an andalite he had good enough manners to keep that out of sight most of the time.

“Sir, you need to get dressed.”

“Yes. Ye-zzzzzz. Yes.” He shook his head.

“Sir.”

He glared at her. It was difficult not to wither. The same aura of menace he always had was still there. It made sense he could project that as a human. Nothing could ever be easy for her. Not with him.

“What, do you think I know how to put on this blasted artificial fur?”

She paused. “I can help you with it, sir.”

“Then get on with it. I’m freezing.”

It was like putting a chihuahua into a winter coat. She had to coax him into lifting his legs so he could pull his pants on, because apparently not having four feet made him feel imbalanced. 

It was definitely some kind of power play. She knew him. He just wanted to intimidate her into handling his package. No one in the world looked at boxers and failed to understand their basic purpose. He spent the whole time staring holes through her head. He pulled her onto his lap when she buttoned his shirt.

“Tell me, will you enjoy being seen with a male of your own species?”

She regarded him critically then shook her head. “You look handsome, but I only go out with the manliest man in the room. No one beats an andalite.”

He dripped with pride. Smug slug. “Of course they don’t. Defenselessness may look good on a woman, but it’s unbecoming of a soldier. Your men are barely distinguishable from your women.”

She tied his tie and tried to get used to his wild grin. She wasn’t sure he knew how openly he was expressing. Andalite’s were a lot less obvious when they smiled.

He held her in his lap until they pulled up to the curb. When they did, he shoved her away. “Make yourself presentable.”

She looked great. He was the one with a half chub.

Gina had a much easier time exiting the car than he did. He swayed like a drunk. She stood on the curb while he leaned heavily on the roof of the car. “Sir, do you want to walk in arm and arm?”

He grabbed at her proffered elbow. For a second he nearly knocked her down with him. He was a big man, taller than her, even counting her louboutins. She had to hold them both steady. 

For once she was grateful for the years she spent at the bottom of the cheer pyramid. She kept him stable as their squadron of armed guards surrounded them. They had visible gun holsters, despite how tacky it looked with their suits.

He shook her off once they entered the building. “I have business to discuss with my underlings. Entertain yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

He skulked off with his mercenaries.

She followed the signs to the Sharing meeting. It took place in a surprisingly classy cafeteria, all refurbished to host guests. Most hospital cafeterias she’d ever been in were super dumpy, so it was a pleasant surprise.

Gina felt alone in a shuffling crowd. People shot her nervous looks. She wore bright red, just like any other member of Visser Three’s personal staff. 

Plus, she was majorly overdressed. It’s not like she’d ever been to a black tie charity event before. She looked like a Marilyn Monroe impersonator in an ocean of black cocktail dresses.

“Hey, you look like you could use a drink.”

Gina barely kept from jumping out of her skin. “Hello, Temrash.”

He looked a lot cuter than most of the schlubby doctors hanging around. He probably used his Sharing credit card to buy a nicely fitting suit. It was too good to be a teenager’s weddings-and-funerals getup. His cheek was visibly bumpy in a way that told her he shaved less than an hour ago. No reason a yeerk would be any better at something than the actual boy he controlled.

He offered her a glass of white wine. She preferred red.

“Thanks.” She still knocked it back.

“Do you want to come sit at my table? You looked a little lost.”

“Yes, please.” She followed him. “You put together a lovely little party.”

“Well, it might not be as fun as a Sharing Dance-a-thon, but I tried.”

“And you did a great job. It’s nice not having to break up a bunch of middle schoolers getting into slap fights for once.”

“A game of volleyball wouldn’t hurt though."

Akrass loved playing volleyball. “I’ll pass.”

“Your loss.”

They sat down. The chairs were metal fold out things under nice white drapes. It soothed Gina’s bruised thighs.

They chatted. Nothing important. Gina wanted to make sure they were on the same page. It must be hard to get all this together while still living in his host’s parents house. She heard he was up for a promotion to a better body. As long as nothing went horribly wrong, he’d get it.

Something went horribly wrong.

Visser Three was giving his speech and it was going well. Gina snickered over how everyone recoiled when he got introduced. He’d be preening over how scary he is for days.

He bragged a lot. He tended to. It was the usual line about how the Sharing was moving up in the world, catching bigger and badder hosts. Soon they would have a pipeline of new hosts coming in -- once they rolled out the initiative to infest every single patient under anesthesia.

Gina thought about the time she got her tonsils removed. She was in the eighth grade and skipped school the entire next week. She stayed in bed and ate ice cream and watched Full House reruns. How would she have felt to wake up from the surgery and be locked into her own body? Her first guess wouldn’t have been an alien brain parasite . She might have assumed the doctors broke her neck.

She wanted more wine.

Then a man sitting at the same table as Gina and Temrash jumped up in the middle of Visser Three’s ramblings. “Visser! Forgive my interruption. But there are several small insects here!"

Gina squeaked and scooched her chair backwards. A roach skittered out from under the table. “Ew! Somebody squish it.”

A man at another table sighed. “Don't worry, they are only cockroaches. They are everywhere on this planet.”

Visser Three slammed his hands on the podium. “Fool! Do you think Andalites cannot morph creatures so small?” He twisted shout at his guards, “Someone kill this fool for me." 

And then someone did.

It was the first time Gina watched someone die. Somehow, despite spending weeks in Visser Three’s shadow this hot spray of pink -- because it was pink, brain mixing with blood and bone, not red like horror movies warned her -- was a new sight. She’d avoided it up until now. She’d only seen the aftermath. Terrible enough, but at least she got to look away. Pinch her nose. Viscera hit white table linens with a wet platt. Or maybe she imagined it, deafened by the gunshot as she was. She hoped she only imagined the wet gurgles coming from his crumpled face, too.

Someone grabbed her by the arm, leading her from the room as everyone writhed in panic. No one wanted to be the next one shot over a couple of cockroaches.

Oh god, she was going to hurl. She fell on her ass in the hallway, tucking her head between her knees. She didn’t want to puke. She liked brushing her teeth afterwards. She carried one in a zip lock baggie in her purse for years for that express reason.

“Ma’am,” The guard leaned down to murmur to her. She recognized him from the group who escorted them inside earlier. “We need to get you out of here. It isn’t safe if there are andalites around.”

“Andalites,” She laughed. It choked her. “What andalites? This is a hospital. It’s full of sick people and cafeteria food and shit! There’s probably tons of cockroaches in every hospital.”

“Still, come on. Let’s get you back to the limo to wait for Visser Three.” He tugged her to her feet. “Maybe you can fix your make up.”

Gina became hyper aware of how her eyelashes stuck together when she blinked. She touched her face. Her hand came back muddy with mascara.

Regina did what she was told. What else was new?

She waited in the car until Visser Three arrived. She was still splotchy, but she cleaned up the runny lines of tears.

His suit was disheveled and his shirt misbuttoned, but he was still human. Or, more likely, human again. She felt for the poor sucker who had to help him dress a second time.

“Drive.” He growled.

The car pulled away from the curb. It shrunk in the tinted window.

“Sir,” Her voice was far away, “Do you want to demorph?”

“No. I’m starved. We’re going out to get something to eat before I decide you’re on the menu.”

She nodded.

“Come here.” He patted the seat beside him.

She crawled over. Her shoes disappeared somewhere in the floorboards. Her dress strap hung off one shoulder. Neither of them were the picture of formality. They sat hip to hip.

She patted his knee. It was meant to be consoling.

He glared at her, but when she tried to pull away he grabbed her hand and held it there. “If anyone else correctly predicted an attack I would have them tortured for information.”

“What?”

“Your little joke, pet. I recall having a laugh over the idea there would be andalites on the premises. Then there were.”

He was squeezing her wrist hard enough to bend her thin bones. 

“They keep showing up.”

“That they do.” He released her. Her wrist throbbed. “Remind me why I haven’t turned you back over to the rabble.”

It certainly wasn’t her ability to make conversation. She pressed a weepy, drooling kiss on the corner of his mouth.

It’s funny, but something about fucking Visser Three in his new human morph was grosser than doing it while he was an andalite. She wouldn’t guess it, but it’s true. Normally it hurt like a hot poker, but at least when he was an andalite she never had to make eye contact with him. She could kiss him chastely on the cheek or jerk him off, but she couldn’t juggle both at the same time. He wasn’t creative enough in bed to figure out a good reach around. 

Unfortunately, this might give him ideas.

He stuffed his tongue in her mouth like he was trying to lick her uvula. She had to nip at him just to make him pull away enough for her to breathe. He groped her breasts like he wanted to give her bruises. Maybe he did. Her dress strap dug into her shoulder until the fabric gave way and snapped. His breath was sour and humid. He panted in her ear. She tried her best not to grimace.

Gina fumbled with his belt. God knows he wouldn’t be able to work the fly. At least he knew their routine enough to just tug her dress up around her waist. The silk had no give. The way he held it drew everything so tight she fought to breathe. 

Even when it wasn't painful, it was never stimulating either. She was long passed active disgust and had settled into a numbness. His touch was as arousing as a weak handshake. She focused on what she knew he liked and smashed down anything else she might be feeling, but his new morph made her body difficult to tune out. She wasn't used to his stale breath or the hair on his knuckles. It almost felt like being with a stranger. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

At least he never took long. It was over by the time the hidden speaker buzzed back on.

“Sir, we’ve arrived.”

Visser Three shoved her off his lap. “Get me something filling. I’m not familiar with this establishment.”

She clambered through the door. Her knees buckled when she tried to stand. Her thighs felt like wet dishrags.

They were stopped sideways across four parking spots outside a McDonalds. The golden arches scorched her retinas. She saw them when she blinked. She was barefoot. The asphalt dug into her feet.

He tossed a wallet out after her. It bounced off her head.

The door chimed. She walked inside and hoped whatever sticky fluid she stepped in was spilled coke. 

It was one in the morning. The only other patron there was an old man face down on the laminate table. He snored.

The smell of fresh french fries was heavenly.

The cashier didn’t acknowledge her until she was right in front of him. He looked at her strangely. “Can I help you?”

She tugged the top of her dress. It hung precariously. “Give me a minute.”

He pursed his lips.

“Do you guys do McRibs?”

“No.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Could I have two Big Mac’s, a large order of fries, a medium order of fries, a cheeseburger, a small order of chicken nuggets, a coke, and two chocolate shakes?” 

The cashier grimaced. “It’ll be a minute.”

Gina shrugged and sat down at the nearest table. The act of sitting made everything inside her shift miserable. She’d have a wet stain on the butt of her dress when she stood. 

It took ten minutes. Honestly, not a bad turn out. The guy behind the counter watched her like she was about to rob them. She wanted to stick her tongue out. At least Visser Three didn’t come in after her.

She was loaded down with bags when she got back to the limo. She still opened the door herself.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer, but -”

He didn’t give her a chance to finish. He snatched a bag out of her hand and bit into a burger without even taking the wrapper off first.

She spilt some of her milkshake on the seat. It already reeked of sex. The Sharing wasn’t getting their deposit back.

He ate like a pig, but it wasn’t enough to keep her cheeseburger from being the most delicious thing Gina ever tasted.

* * *

Maybe it was the massive emotional drop after her roller coaster of a night, but the rest of Gina’s week was alright. Almost relaxed, all things considered. 

Her life wasn’t particularly better than usual. She still had to smile lovingly every time Visser Three called her pet or tugged her hair or told her she was stupid. On the other hand, they spent the next few days in the relative comfort of the Santa Barbara pool. She ate things that weren’t cosmic radiation flavored. She even slept alone in her own apartment when Visser Three pulled an all nighter micromanaging some goofy plan that still failed miserably. 

By the time she woke up he’d already burned out his frustrations on a bunch of taxxon.

Gina was as happy as she ever got to be until the war ended.

Her only hint that something had gone sideways came in a memo that weekend. Temrash was AWOL. Considering how few places there were for a yeerk to hide, she was baffled.

She rang up Iniss 226. Given Temrash’s new host got away, he should have returned to Tom.

“Hello, this is Hedrick Chapman speaking.”

She spun her rolling chair in a slow circle. Visser Three was sulking in his room working on reports. She had the office to herself. “No it isn’t.”

“Excuse me? I think you have the wrong number.”

Cut the crap. “Iniss 226, I’m calling on behalf of the Visser.”

He audibly fumbled the phone. “Oh, I recognize you. Is this Visser Three’s secretary?”

“Yes. I wanted to check up on Temrash 114. Obviously, he’s not getting promoted anymore, but is it true he hasn’t reported back to his old body?”

“No one’s heard from him in days. We left the interim controller in his host. One Essa 412, an ex-taxxon pilot.”

She sighed. “Okay. Just checking. It’s such a shame, if he hadn’t ruined our little plot he definitely would have made Sub-Visser.”

“Not everyone can handle the pressure.”

“I guess not. That’s all. Goodbye.” She hung up before he had a chance to say it back.

Weird. 

She sort of knew Temrash. Akrass adored him to levels Gina found skeevy. She, personally, considered him a kiss ass. Still, he had a brain in his nasty little yeerk body. So many people gave up once they got their non-existent hands on a human body. They lived that lush human life and couldn’t picture anything better. 

Akrass was that way. 

Temrash, though, he had goals.

Maybe he was just laying low to avoid Visser Three’s temper tantrums. Wouldn’t be the first. Which was its own issue. She really needed to install a complaint box on her office door. If Visser Three scared off every helpful sycophant then they’d never get anything done. He had to stop shooting the messenger. No way he'd do it of his own free will. Gina needed a way to intercept anything coming his way before he blew up.

She rubbed her temples. 

How could a yeerk just disappear?


	8. The Capture

**Please state your name for the record.**

His name was Thomas Berenson. He pulled a thread on the seam of his suit jacket. The fabric bunched up. He knew he should stop. He just wasn’t able to.

It was a bad habit he picked up in the cages by the pool. People who screamed and shook the bars were brave. They were also balding from how tightly guards gripped their hair when they dragged them up the dock. Eventually, everyone quieted down. Instead of throwing themselves in the paths of dracon beams, people savored their hour of freedom. Some people prayed. Some people paced. Some people chewed their nails raw. Tom sat in the corner and tugged the seams of his clothes.

By now it was a nervous tick. He took the stand to tell a judge and jury and a bunch of waiting news crews what happened to him during the war. 

The issue: He couldn’t start at the point they cared about. Most people just wanted to hear Jake’s story. Tom was just a supporting character. Before he served as Visser Three’s security chief, Tom’s yeerk was just Essa 412. G-d, Essa wasn’t even his first yeerk. Everything started back with Temrash 114.

The prosecutor told him to start at the beginning. He did.

He joined the Sharing. A girl he liked invited him. She was pretty. He thought it might give them something to talk about.

He didn’t buy in, but he never even guessed it wasn’t a real after school group.

He thought she was seeing some other guy. He wanted to know so he didn’t waste time if she wasn’t that into him. He followed her to a full members’ meeting. 

He saw him. Visser Three. Funny thing was, if they told Tom it was a really good costume he would have bought it. Left and put it out of his mind. Visser Three was too unbelievable.

Then they dragged him to the pool and-

Everyone knew what happened next.

Temrash 114 was a lot of things. A bully. A self obsessed prick. A Grade-A loser with terrible taste in T.V. shows. Most of all, Temrash was a brown noser.

Tom hated Temrash for all those reasons and more. Still, to be honest, Temrash’s constant compulsion to suck up to everyone caused him by far the most trouble. He cozied up to Sub-Vissers and guards and people who validated park tickets.

Case in point: Visser Ten. She didn’t even have a rank back then, but Temrash sniffed out connections like nobody’s business. That’s how he managed to win over all those doctors they tried to infest at the hospital. He would put up with anything if he thought the yeerk doing it might help him get a leg up someday.

Which, in retrospect, was probably why he put up with Akrass 573. Sure, she was a dumb as a sack of bricks, but she made friends wherever she went. Temrash appreciated that. Even if she got on his nerves sometimes.

Of course, Temrash never realized her host was so much worse.

* * *

There were no stars. None that Gina saw, anyway. It wasn’t particularly cloudy. The street lights just blotted them out. Standing in the community center parking lot, she might as well be on a football field on a Friday night. The sky was a gray canopy.

<It’s so humid. Gross. I feel like chewing gum. All soggy.> Akrass whined.

Yeah, it majorly frizzed up their hair.

<Do you think we better go back in?>

Probably.

<I just wanted some fresh air. To sober up, you know?>

Maybe Akrass shouldn’t have pregamed a Sharing Lock-In she volunteered to chaperone. Gina knew it was a Friday night, but in her humble opinion this verging into alcoholic territory.

<Don’t be a pill. How else am I supposed to put up with a bunch of middle schoolers?>

Gina would have rolled her eyes if Akrass let her.

Offering to chaperone was Akrass’s idea. She wanted to make it up to Iniss 226 for torching the hotdogs during last week’s beach BBQ. Between Gina’s Red Cross certified babysitting training and her natural charms, Akrass said she could handle anything. Instead, she spent the last hour getting heat damage when she agreed to let an eighth grader straighten her hair.

They’d need to do a deep conditioning treatment after this.

She propped the door open with a chair. They all technically locked at nine. Akrass never thought about consequences.

“Quitting early, Regina?”

She twirled around. Her crispy hair got caught in the door as it slammed shut.

Gina told her this was a bad idea. 

“Hi, Mr. Chapman.”

“Do you want me to send you home?”

She leaned forward on her door-stop chair. Show off the goods. “Of course not! Just needed to make sure the windows on my car were rolled up.”

“I recall you took the bus.”

“Come on,” She laughed, grabbing his shirt sleeve, “Cut me some slack, Mr. Vice-Principal. I’m not one of your students.”

He jerked away and she tottered. “Keep it together, Akrass. I can smell the alcohol on you.”

“C’mon, Iniss 226. I thought you liked it when I was friendly.” She pouted. <God, he’s such a downer.>

Akrass still wouldn’t kick him out of bed.

“I prefer when you don’t break character.” He hissed.

“Hey, Mr. Chapman,” A voice called. Some twelve year old. “When do you think the pizzas will get here?”

His whole demeanor changed. His yeerk face melted off and left behind a man who claimed to put the ‘pal’ in principal. He smoothed his combover. His scalp shined under the fluorescents. He smiled. It didn’t show too many teeth. It made him look sleazier than before. 

Akrass agreed. She liked it.

He hustled off. A familiar face rounded the corner. “Is he gone?”

“Temrash!” Akrass whisper-yelled. She clasped her hands in front of her chest.

He pretended he was a Visser in training, but Gina could see his crush on Akrass from a mile away. Akrass had Gina’s face and Anna Nicole Smith’s personality. Anna Nicole’s bod too. That’s the reason she was placed in charge of the Sharing’s charity car wash, after all. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that? No surprise Temrash bailed her out when she got in trouble. His host was way too young for her, but it was nice to have a baby faced boy at her beck and call.

They smiled at one another. 

Gina mentally made gagging noises.

Akrass rocked on her heels. “Do you want to go smoke on the roof?”

“Akrass!”

“Come on, Tem, live a little. I heard a rumor you’re thinking of quitting the basketball team anyway, so what’ll it hurt?” Other than Gina’s complexion?

“My host’s lungs, to start with.” His jaw dropped. “Did you seriously just call me Tem?”

She looped her arm through his and guided him down the hall. “I know you’ve been stuck in the pool since forever. Up here in the real world people have nicknames. Let’s go. I already borrowed the keys from the janitor.”

“You mean stole.”

“Yeah, duh, obviously.”

He flopped his head back, but went along with her.

She hadn’t lied. Akrass pocketed the custodians keyring earlier that afternoon. She loved doing that kind of thing, batting her eyes and being pretty enough to distract men from what she got up to. It’s what she tried pulling with Iniss. He, however, was immune to her kissy faces. Gina suspected he just didn’t like trashy co-eds. Akrass doubted it. Who doesn’t love a girl gone wild?

They snuck onto the roof. The building was a fat shoebox with a terrible view, but neither of them minded. Temrash loaned Akrass his jacket to sit on so the gravelly roof didn’t bite into her thighs.

They lit two cigarettes from a single match.

“Kandrona, I needed this,” Temrash coughed up half a lung.

“Are you sure?” She thwacked him on the back.

“Completely.” He sneered and put on a falsetto, “Tom, come shoot hoops with me, Tom come see what I drew, Tom Tom Tom. It drives me crazy.”

“Don’t I know it? Look what they did to my hair!” Akrass lifted a clump. It was too thick to flat iron. Her curls were coming back in sad s-bends.

“You look fine.”

“I better. I’m giving a presentation in front of a bunch of sub-visser’s on Monday.”

Temrash perked up. “You? Why?”

She took a drag. “Apparently my charity car wash broke records for community engagement. They want me to talk about how I managed it.”

“But?”

“It wasn’t even my idea. It was my host’s.”

He snorted. “Really?”

“Yeah, she held something like that for her cheer squad back in the day. Sub-Visser Eighty Two put me on the spot and she suggested it.”

“Well, you’re screwed.”

“Don’t I know it? I'll just pick her brain, as usual.”

“I hear that.” Tom held out his cigarette. “To hosts, may they never outlive their usefulness.”

They tapped the ends together.

“Cheers. It’ll probably be a bunch of middle management geeks anyway.” It’s not like anyone important kept tabs on all the yeerks stuck pretending to be college girls and high school boys so long as their recruitment numbers stayed high.

They stared at the empty sky.

* * *

Regina’s dorm room reeked of Bath & Body Works perfume. It was a pink cloud ruining visibility and seeping into the cracks in the cement walls, too muddled together to be any distinguishable smell. This was no ‘Love Spell’ or ‘Warm Vanilla Sugar’. It was a chemical sweetness that tasted gritty in her mouth.

Akrass threw another dress on the ground. It joined a wrinkly, ever growing pile. The coat hangers were in another, clacking against one another on her bed.

<I need something that says ‘I’m hip and cute and great at my job. I don’t need any extra responsibility please and thank you.’> She smooched her lips at her reflection.

Maybe a polo dress? They’re very figure flattering.

<Yeah, but they make me feel fat. I have an awful muffin top.>

Then lay off the booze, fatass.

<Don’t be mean.> Akrass glared at herself. She crossed her arms, uncrossed them, then crossed them again under her breasts to make herself look bustier.

She plopped down on the bed. Several coat hangers clattered off.

Gina used to have abs. She always had a big butt, but her stomach was impeccable. A rumor went around back in senior year her parents got her a tummy tuck. Someone asked -- to her face -- why she didn’t have a nose job instead. 

<I like it. It’s aristocratic, you know? Like Princess Diana's nose.> Akrass admired her profile.

Gina liked her nose fine. She always thought about that girl from Dirty Dancing. The first thing she did after getting famous was have her nose done, but afterwards no one recognized her. She never got another role.

<God, for real?> Akrass asked even though she could fact check from Gina’s own memory.

Cross her heart and hope to die.

Akrass kicked back. Gina’s childhood bedroom had a picture of Beverly Hills, 90210’s Luke Perry taped to the ceiling. The dorm had off-white tiles that rejected tape like an ugly prom date.

<What shoes say ‘I’m a serious professional’?> Akrass pointed her feet. She used her pumice stone religiously. Her nails were painted pale pink. <I’m thinking open toed.>

Certainly seasonally appropriate. Akrass just had to be careful not to step in a pool water puddle.

<Or taxxon gunk.> She stuck out her tongue.

Gag.

<Talking about taxxons reminds me, what should we get for dinner? I’m thinking Chinese, but might be convinced to get Mexican if we can still get it delivered.>

They needed to call Gina’s mom first. It’s Sunday. She’d be worried if Gina failed to make their weekly chat.

<Can you do the talking? I don’t want to get chewed out for thirty minutes.>

If Akrass stopped racking up parking tickets it wouldn’t be a problem.

<Let me order dinner first. So you’re up for Chinese?>

Fine.

She grabbed the phone off the receiver and the menu off her cork board. It was smudged and ragged, but still legible. She ordered a big spread. <We’re probably skipping breakfast tomorrow to keep that morning skinniness.>  
Gina’s turn on the phone.

<Remember, be nice!> Akrass dialed Gina’s mother’s number. She didn’t need to scrape Gina’s brain. It was stored in Gina’s muscle memory.

The phone rang twice before someone picked up.

“Hello, this is the Arroyo residence.”

“Hi, Mama.”

“Regina, my baby! How are you?”

“I’m killer! How are things at the ranch?”

“You won’t believe it. Missus May Day finally foaled!”

Gina gasped. Akrass covered her mouth. “No way! She’s been so overdue. What did you name the baby? How’d it happened? Is May doing alright? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I knew you had that big Sharing thing-a-majig coming up and I didn’t want you worrying about coming down for the weekend.”

“Mama,” Gina whined, “You know May is my baby. I was there when she was born! I wanted to be there when she had her first too.”

“Well, you can rest assured, Sun Day is just as healthy as a horse.”

“Sun Day!” Gina squealed. “We can call her Sunny.”

Nothing Gina had to announce compared to a wobbly kneed baby. She tried her best regardless. She regaled her mother about everything Akrass had gotten up to that week. She kept things PG-13. Even when she slipped up Gina knew her mother lived for it. She gently chided Gina for speeding in the car they got her. 

Akrass wound the telephone cord around her wrist until it left red dents in her skin.

Gina loved her mom’s calls much more than those thirty minutes twice a week spent in a cage stinking of fear sweat. She missed her mom. Her big city college life shouldn’t change how close they were, how intimately they knew each other's secrets. Even if none of the parties or the friends were actually Gina’s.

Her mother had no clue when she twisted the knife by accident. “I’m so glad to hear things are going so nicely for you, princess. You know your daddy and I were so worried when you went off and decided not to rush. You hardly seemed to leave your dorm at all.”

Akrass never forced this spiel. Gina knew what to say. “It’s all thanks to the Sharing. They’ve done everything to make me feel at home.”

“And we can’t say how grateful we are.”

<Tell her to donate money.>

Shut up.

A knock at the door.

“Mama, dinner’s here. I need to get going.”

“Okay, baby, I’ll talk to you soon, alright?”

“Alright, mama. I love you.”

“Love you too, Gigi. Kisses.”

“Kisses.”

Akrass hung up the phone. There was a second knock. “Coming!”

She greeted the delivery boy at the door with a wad of ones. She waved it in his face. “Keep the change.”

She bustled back to her bed with armfuls of styrofoam boxes. She clutched her chopsticks between her teeth. She lowered backwards onto the bed, meal cushioned on her lap.

Gina hoped she was careful not to get crumbs in the sheets.

<Course not.> Akrass opened the container and was hit with a wave of steam.

Yeerks had senses humans didn’t. They read minds. They echolocated. They correctly identified minor chemical changes in their pool with accuracy that would put a laboratory full of researchers to shame. Still, even with all that they couldn’t tell their pools were yellow. They never heard waves splash softly on the pier. Kandrona rays had nothing on the taste of butter or salt.

Akrass loved taste best of all Gina’s senses. 

When dinner time rolled around she always took her food back to her room. People gave her funny looks -- particularly since she happily skipped class to hang out -- but Akrass couldn’t help herself when it came to food. The hot drag of noodles made her eyes roll back. When she bit into a steamed bun, juices slid down her chin. She wiped with with her palm then licked herself clean. Every meal was the best she’d ever eaten. She scarfed down her first fortune cookie paper and all.

Akrass understood what that first yeerk to infest a Gedd must have felt like. She’d tried to explain it once to Gina. She told her to imagine going her entire life without ever touching a drop of water. Maybe she cleaned herself with wet wipes, Akrass didn’t know. Anyway, she’d have seen the ocean. She’d looked at pictures of fish swimming in a tank and bubbles floating in the sink. She knew objectively that it must feel different from dry land, lightweight and blurred. People climbed out of pools with a new, beautiful sheen. 

People drowned down there.

One day someone dumped her in the Pacific Ocean. How would she feel?

Akrass knocked back a Coke. She kept a secret stash of the Mexican kind in glass bottles under her bed. It still came with real sugar. She liked the American stuff just fine, but Akrass wanted everything to be perfect when she binged. 

Same reason she propped a chair under the doorknob. Her roommate had evening classes, but Akrass wasn’t risking interruption.

It was a bid to make dinner worth Gina’s sneer.

She savored her meal, drawing it out for thirty minutes before Gina spoke her mind.

Gina just thought it was funny.

<What’s funny?> Akrass asked cautiously. She swallowed her final pork bun much slower than she gobbled all the others.

Well, at times like this Gina couldn’t help think Akrass would make a better tapeworm than a yeerk.

Akrass pinched her lips.

She pigged out enough to be one. She’d probably enjoy it. She was already a parasite. Would it be so different to live in Gina’s stomach instead of her skull? She’d still get to stuff her face to her heart's content. 

Did yeerks have hearts? Neither of them knew.

Either way, if she was a tapeworm she’d be the one who had to deal with getting so fat instead of Gina.

<We look fine.> Akrass crumpled up her napkin.

Did they though? Akrass acknowledged their pink polo dress fit like a sausage casing. Gina used to slip into it just fine. When she first bought it she wore it to a party at a lake house and her date couldn’t keep his eyes -- or his hands -- off her. Now she’d rather swan dive into the yeerk pool than wear it in public.

Face it, they’d really started packing on the pounds.

<That’s not true! And even if it was, it all goes right to our boobs.>

Does it? If her tits was that huge Akrass wouldn’t get rejected all the time.

<I don’t get rejected all the time.>

Just every time that matters. Remember how embarrassed she felt when that douche with the hork bajir host turned her down? And it’s not like Temrash ever returned her calls.

Akrass growled, <At least I didn’t peak in high school.>

Better than Akrass, who peaked the day she stole Gina’s body. All downhill from there. Pitiful.

Akrass drew up Gina’s most painful memories. Maybe she’d make her relive having to pretend to be asleep that first weekend away at college while her roommate had a parade of boys over.

If Gina had control she’d roll her eyes. Was that really the worst Akrass could come up with? Gina already lived her worst nightmare every day she watched Akrass turn her body into a fucking laughingstock.

What, no response? Come on, Skank-rass. Everyone saw it. She’s an ugly cow. A dirty parasite ruining everything she slithered into. 

<Shut up.> She slapped Gina with a barrage of hot shame.

Too bad Gina felt that way already just looking in the mirror.

<What am I supposed to do about it now?> Cried Akrass, even though she knew the answer.

If Akrass wanted to pretend to be a real girl she needed to act like one when it counted. Do the same thing Gina always did when she screwed up her diet.

Akrass felt her face go hot. <I don’t want to.>

Pussy. Akrass acted like she was so much better at being a girl, but always chickened out when the chickens came to roost. 

If she didn’t want to do it how Gina would, she could always pop a couple laxatives. Gina just thought that was grosser. With her way, it was over fast. Everyone else living on their hall was out for dinner. They’d never know.

<Fine.>

What was that?

<I said fine!>

Words didn’t mean anything. Do or die, Akrass.

Akrass remembered to put on her flip flops before heading to the bathroom. Gina said it was nasty to walk in there barefoot.

It wasn’t even hard -- Gina had plenty of practice to draw from -- just different in Gina’s memories. Gina felt clean, empty as a purse held upside down and shaken. Akrass’s sinuses burned when she finally forced herself to throw up. The back of her throat stung with every cough. She shuddered when she felt what she ate slide up her throat and passed her lips. 

That didn’t stop her from doing it twice. Gina reminded her. It was important to be thorough. 

She blotted her tears with toilet paper when she finished. No one wanted to see her mascara running.

Is she really crying? Really? Gina always told her the truth. She's looking out for them, helping Akrass. If it wasn't for her, they’d go out looking like a flabby cow. Neither of them want that, do they?

<No.>

Gina thought so.

* * *

They agreed on a little plaid skirt and a white t-shirt that really showed some skin. Not her most imaginative look. At least she got to keep the open toed shoes. More importantly, she turned heads. Most people didn’t wear haute couture poolside. It got rumpled when hosts rolled around in the cages. 

People fell over themselves to let her jump the line in the pool copy room. Thank god, too. She focused too hard on dressing up and forgot to print any of her materials. 

She also forgot her I.D. card.

“You’re the best.” She rested on the copier.

Some dude from the Sharing saved her skin. He was scrawny but tan, with shaggy hair. He ran sound equipment whenever they held dances. Gina thought he did a mediocre job. Akrass would have called him Mozart if it meant getting her handouts ready for whatever stuffed shirt sub-vissers would be in her audience today. Unfortunately, gun to her head, she wouldn’t be able to remember his name.

“It’s no problem. What do you need all this for anyway?”

She twirled her hair around her finger. “Remember that Sharing car wash?”

“Do I ever. There was a line of cars so big the cops closed the street.”

She smiled. “We made ten thousand dollars. Humans are too easy. Put a bunch of girls in white t-shirt then soak ‘em. Next thing you know they’re telling you their social security number just for a peek.”

“Idiots.” He clearly didn’t have much to add, but wanted to keep talking.

See, what did Gina tell her? If she listened, Akrass will have the boys crawling after her.

Akrass bit her tongue on purpose. “Hey, walk me to my meeting?”

He reared back, blinking behind glasses with translucent rims. “Absolutely. Where’re you headed?”

She squinted at the papers. They were still in the copy tray, so they were upside down. “Room 201 lower case D?”

He looked too. “You mean 501 P?”

“Oh. Yeah! Thanks!”

He smiled, patronizingly. “Want me to show you where?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

He carried her flyers and she chattered good naturedly about nothing important. Everything from the bonfire coming up to last week’s volleyball tournament. Akrass loved flouncing, eyes closed and hair bouncing behind her. If her eyes had been open, she might have noticed when the boy she was walking with fell back.

She also might have noticed there was someone blocking the door.

She hit him at full speed, forehead bonking a rock hard chest. Her eyes snapped open, but all she saw was blue. Before more registered, her sudden stop sent her high heel skidding on the stone floor. She pinwheeled her arms and toppled backwards onto her ass.

No one laughed. The hall was dead silent.

<You’re our guest speaker today?> Asked a voice in Gina’s head.

Neither of them had ever seen an andalite before. Hot fear rushed through Akrass’s real body. She contracted around Gina’s brain hard enough to give them both a headache. 

Every yeerk shrunk from andalites. 

Gina’s reaction was more subdued. She wasn’t underwhelmed by him. She simply couldn’t comprehend what she saw.

He wasn’t big enough to be a horse, but far too tall to be a man. Did andalite’s nail on their shoes like horses? Did they travel in herds? Why was he giving her such a funny look?

What was with that scorpion tail?

Akrass’s had a chance to be smart. <That’s Visser Three.>

Right. She’d heard of him. Visser Three, hero of the empire, just as stone face as they said. Then again, he hardly had a mouth to smile with, just three vertical nasal slits. Even all the way down there she saw them twitch when he breathed. His tail looked nothing like a horse’s. She wouldn’t be surprised to see venom drip from the tip. It seemed conscious like the snake on a chimera, twisting lasso loops behind him.

Akrass finally willed herself to speak. No one else piped up to save her neck. “Yes, sir.”

<You’re early. Good. Let’s get this over with.>

He retreated back into the room. He didn’t spare a second glance, but his tail danced.

<Oh god, oh god.> Akrass offloaded all her fear into Gina’s consciousness to keep from crying. Her host's face stayed still, but inside everything churned. <I don’t want to die. What’s he doing here? Visser One never came to these things.>

Gina tried to parse her feelings from Akrass’s. She wasn’t that scared. He didn’t look angry.

<We body slammed Visser Three! He probably just wants to wait until we’re in there so everyone can watch him suck me right out of your head.>

He could do that?

<He can morph, Gina!> Akrass’s warbling voice was like a dentist's drill digging into Gina’s skull. <He has a morph just for eating yeerks without wasting their hosts.>

Gross. That’s cannibalism.

<I know, right?>

He’s definitely eating her if she wastes his time having a panic attack.

Akrass silently moaned.

She needed to get back in the saddle, pardon the expression.

Akrass shut her eyes so tight she saw red explosions. She opened them and climbed onto her feet. What should she do now?

Walk in there and thank them for their patience. Tell them she’s so pleased to be presenting today. She’s proud to show them how well the Sharing is doing this financial quarter.

She did. 

The sub-vissers favored her with a polite smile. Visser Three was inscrutable. 

<Gina, I can’t do this. I’m freezing up.>

If Akrass decided to chicken out yet again, she should let Gina handle things. Akrass might consider her crazy, but she wasn’t afraid of some goofy looking centaur. Well, no more afraid than she was of hork bajir hoisting her under her armpits and dragging her to the docks or taxxon’s sniffing at her hair while she cowered in the lunchroom. He was just another alien.

<Two.>

What?

<He’s a yeerk and an andalite. Two aliens.>

Gina remained silent. Either let her fix this for them the way she did last night or sack up and do it herself.

Akrass chose the former. Gina felt her tongue slacken. Her face returned next. It came like a ripple through her body as Akrass curled in on herself and away from Gina’s brain. She hoped no one would tell how much trouble she had staying on her feet.

In the end, Gina gave a speech she’d done before. She told the same thing to high school’s booster club when her squad raked in an obscene level of money at her final fundraiser. They’d acted like she’d dont too much, gone overboard with her whole hot cheerleader aesthetic. She had to assure everyone it was above board. This was no different. 

They pulled ten thousand dollars and had the highest public engagement of any Sharing charity event on since Visser One’s departure. 

No, it didn’t hurt their image to get a cliche. 

Everyone believed the money went to charity. Obviously, it didn’t, but it looked good to claim it was.

She slipped up once. Gina stumbled when she got to potential follow up activities. Normally, it never gave her trouble. Gina knew all about bake sales and fun fairs and candy drives. Normally she’d spit out something that sounded like a plan a bunch of old guys would understand. 

But Visser Three stared her down. The point of those eye stalks was to point them in different directions. He looked at her like Akrass looked at a key lime pie. 

Yuck.

Scary though it was, they survived with Gina’s eardrum intact. Visser Three told her to let in whoever waited in the hall on her way out. 

She obeyed.

Afterwards, Gina didn’t protest Akrass sneaking into an empty closet and popping an entire bottle of tums from the bottom of Gina’s purse. It tasted like fake bubble gum.

* * *

Two weeks later, down in the cages, Gina braided her hair. Akrass forgot to put on Gina’s good hair oil. Sitting by the pool made her frizz. It was a loose braid, no one wanted big dents in her curls.

She sat catty-corner to a suspicious puddle. Drains peppered the floor of those cattle pens like in a swimming pool changing room. Every day at noon and midnight someone rinsed them out with high pressure water hoses. 

Next to her, a grown man wearing a frumpy business suit dropped everything in his wallet down the drain slots one by one. When she asked him why, he said he always tried to do little things to inconvenience his yeerk. Last time he tied his shoelaces together and filled his brain with nonsense so his yeerk wouldn’t notice until he tried to walk. He got a black eye. 

Gina saw the green bruise. 

Now he’d need to get all his credit cards cancelled and reissued. He’d only just been approved for a black card. His yeerk was so excited to use it. Doing little things to make him miserable kept him going.

Gina wouldn’t go near those drains even if it meant getting one up on Akrass. The constant turnover of petrified people meant it never stayed clean for long. Most humans gave up the ghost after a month or two, but Gina never saw a hork bajir who wasn’t rattling the bars or swearing in galard. 

Again, plenty of humans did that too, but watching a jacked up velociraptor do it scared her more.

One time they put her in a mixed species cage. Gina would rather serve lunch to taxxons than ever be stuck with a thrashing hork bajir again. One of the dracon beams they shot at him grazed her. It gave her a streak of sunburn.

Gina never acted up, not even once. 

Her first time in the cages she curled up, clapped her hands over her ears, and cried. The guards still hoisted her under her armpits and dunked her head in the sludge. Pretending to be somewhere else didn’t work. Now she tried to be good. They even allowed her to walk without getting scalped most of the time. Sometimes a yeerk having a bad day would take it out on her, but it was getting rarer. She was no Voluntary, but people got tired of beating something that wouldn’t fight back.

That’s why she didn’t yelp when a hork bajir loomed by the cage door.

“Regina Arroyo?” He asked. Akrass taught her how to tell a girl hork bajir from a boy by counting the number of horns.

“That’s me.” She got to her feet. The way she had her legs tucked under her left them wobbly.

“Come with me.”

She noticed it set one clawed hand on her arm. Normally they gripped hard enough to leave red prints. It’s why Akrass never wore sweaters down there. They always snagged a stitch and destroyed the weave.

She also noticed they were heading in the wrong direction. 

“Not that I mind a chance to stretch my legs, but isn’t the pool that way.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. The last thing she wanted was to live Akrass’s wet dream and find out just what kind of heat hork bajirs packed. When he failed to respond, she planted her feet. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Keep moving,” He shoved her into a hallway. “Visser Three wants to talk.”

Her skin went clammy. Not good, but better than being turned into a puree. “Okay.”

“Not like you have a choice.”

What an asshole.

“You don’t have to drag me by the hair. I’m not running.”

“You should be. Nothing good happens to people Visser Three notices. I’ll be watching the door so you can’t get away.”

Must be what got his rocks off. A knot of dread grew in her throat.

They walked to tunnels Gina ever seen before. Akrass hated being down there. Gina agreed. The ceilings were low and walls rough enough to skin her elbow if she bumped into it. They were cold in the summer and humid in the winter. Her tennis shoes slapped the floor and his claws clicked like an oversized dog.

They stopped in front of an unmarked door. It slid open.

This time he shoved her much more gently. She still stumbled.

Visser Three looked just as strange as she remembered. Alone in this office with its desk and conference table and bookshelves and filing cabinets he looked even less real. Gina knew what horses looked like. Something under his skin moved wrong. Muscles were placed just slightly off to compensate for his human upper body. She should be able to peek over him and see a puppeteer.

She still held her breath when he walked towards her. He smelled like a real animal. She wanted to shrink back. Instead, she tilted her chin up in the way she’d been told makes her look haughty.

“Can I help you?” She paused, then added, “Sir?”

He came close enough she could have touched him. Somehow she knew, though she couldn’t say how, that he was smug. His tail bobbed low to the ground and his extra pair of eyes lazily scanned the room. His arms were crossed.

<Perhaps. Do you have any guess why I summoned you here today?>

“Do you want to have a follow up on Sharing charity events?”

He snorted. It was the first sound she heard him make outside of thoughtspeak. The carpet muffled his hoofbeats. <No. Guess again.>

“I’m getting promoted?”

<Closer to the target.> His tailblade suddenly swooped forward enough to click against her gold anklet. 

“Could I get a hint?”

<Only if you answer my question.> He cocked his head and all four of his wide, green eyes looked genuinely curious. <Did you really believe you fooled me into thinking your yeerk was speaking during that presentation?>

All the blood in her face drained into her stomach. No point lying. “Was I that obvious?”

<The others did not realize. They suspect your yeerk’s nerves were shot from running into me. I routinely kill people for such offenses, after all. They wouldn’t imagine she would be so stupid as to commit treason for such a ridiculous reason.>

“She forgot to practice what to say and blanked out.” Gina pursed her lips. She warned her to make note cards.

<You didn’t.>

“No, sir.”

Visser Three paced. He was large, much too big for the room, so instead of going from wall to wall he trotted slow circles around her. <I loathe incompetence.>

He didn’t go on. She nodded. “I don’t exactly love it either.”

<I can tell. You’re not incompetent are you, Regina?>

“No, sir.”

<Good. Your yeerk -- what’s her name -- Akrass 573 is?>

“Yes, sir.”

<Do you think you would make a better invader?>

Gina opened her mouth. Then she closed it. “In what way?”

<Nearly any.> He waved dismissively. <I cannot stand to watch good resources be wasted. You’re clearly more intelligent than that pool scum who takes up room in your head. If the roles were reversed, I can only imagine what someone clever could accomplish with a body like yours.>

She watched him. She didn’t want to look wary, just respectfully cautious.

<I don’t count myself as a scientist, but let’s perform an experiment. You have complete control over your facilities right now. Prove to me you deserve them more than Akrass.>

She clasped her hands in front of her. Doubt flickered, but there wasn’t much to lose. “If I were Akrass I would do more to bridge the gap between what the Sharing does with high schoolers and what it does with college students. Maybe a mentor program. One on one attention might take more time for the individual yeerks, but I think a bunch of high schoolers would be way more likely to join to impress-”

He clicked from somewhere in his throat. <That isn’t what I had in mind. Not to say it’s a bad idea, but I want something else from you right now.>

“Anything, sir.” She’d walk on broken glass to keep his tail blade from coming near her again. At least that probably wouldn’t hit a vein.

<You’re a beautiful woman.> He pinched her chin. His fingers were longer than a human’s and he had seven of them per hand. <Get on your knees.>

Gina wasn’t dumb. She got a 29 on the ACTs. She just didn’t even consider it meant what it sounded like. She joked about Akrass being slutty, but she never actually got any. To Gina, aliens were non-sexual beings.

There was no mistaking what was hanging between his back legs. Gina’s family raised horses. She knew what it looked like.

Someone else might have laid down their lives. Maybe they’d have a little dignity. Gina thought about his tailblade kissing her neck. She remembered Akrass drooling slug slime down her ear canal. She tasted the burn of forcing herself to vomit before cheerleading competitions. None of those things blotted out the saltiness or the sounds he forced inside her head. She got it over with. Even when choking back tears made her throat spasm, it only helped. 

He liked it.

It took a long time to be over. When it was, she sat back with her legs tucked up against her belly.

She leaned back to face him. He trembled. 

She felt it when she was underneath him, too. 

<You’re more obedient than half the yeerks on this planet.>

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She pried it away to say, “Thank you.”

He reached over to his desk and poked something outside her view.

The door slid open. That same hork bajir stood in the frame. “Sir.”

<Take her to my quarters.> He flicked his eyes back down to her. <You’ll wait there until I’m done for the day.>

She got to her feet. Sweat chafed her thighs when she walked. Her friends used to call it chub rub.

This time he didn’t heckle her. They walked in silence. They went deeper into the tunnels. Everything was unfamiliar to her. If he left her, she would be lost. They passed a few other controllers, but no one gave them a second glance.

Finally they stopped at another unmarked door. It opened on it’s own, no magic password required.

He looked at her. “I don’t know what you did in there, but you better keep it up.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You don’t need to know. Unless you have orders to keep me company, get lost.”

He rolled his eyes. She’d never seen a hork bajir do that. Maybe he used to have a human host. Still, much to her surprise, he did what she told him.

It was a nondescript room. It had a california king bed, a couch, a television, and a desk with a little intercom on top.

She sat on the couch. It was more comfortable than the concrete cage floor. She closed her eyes.

Then she bolted upright. She had no clue how long that took, but she was certain it was longer than Akrass took to feed. He said she’d be there at least until he got off work. Gina wasn’t getting reinfested.


	9. The Alien

**Please state your name for the record.**

His name was Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. By the standards of his people, he just turned seven. That was a source of amusement for humans and, unlike certain others, he took it good naturedly. Among andalites Aximili was famous for his familiarity with human humor.

He appreciated everything the court did to set this up. Testifying without morphing mattered a great deal to him. Testifying as a human would be simpler. It would also be speaking under an assumed identity instead of as himself. He never wanted to do such a thing in a house of law. It felt too close to lying. 

However, on the subject of the witness booth. Someone designed it with human beings in mind. Understandable. He was the first andalite called as a witness. A bailiff kindly removed the table and chairs so he had enough room.

Back on subject. Creature comforts were not why Aximili was speaking today. 

On November 20th, 1997 by Earth’s popular calendar, Aximili attempted to assassinate Visser One, then Visser Three. He received orders by Commander Lirem-Arrepath-Terrouss to resist yeerks on Earth. Familial honor commanded him to avenge his brother’s death.

He decided against mentioning in court this trial was an opportunity to do so. Marco warned him against it. Elfangor never surrendered. His death, insulting and grotesque as it was, was still merely another death on the battlefield. Human lawyers decided against prosecuting Visser One for it. He committed uncountable atrocities besides that lone murder. He would be punished regardless. Still, Elfangor’s presence haunted everyone present.

Aximili was famous for his studies on earth. Andalite soldiers remain under standing orders to document any newly discovered societies in as much detail as possible. Whether the electorate votes to make contact, having a proper guidebook to the locals invariably comes in handy. Ax spent three years living among humans. He liked to believe he came to know them as well as any andalite had ever known an alien.

However, early in his stay he was not the most committed anthropologist. His comrades tried their best to welcome him to their planet, but they were working under human models of reciprocal sharing. Arisths were trained to never let their guards down among aliens. It was the ultimate taboo. Elfangor broke it long before Aximili ever arrived, but he did not wish to do further damage.

In addition, he worked under the assumption he would not stay long. His people would rescue him. 

This proved false.

He only provided this information as context. He wished not to offend the jury. Now he regarded Earth and its peoples fondly. He was immature when his ship crashed.

This was why he paid little attention to human controllers in those early days. He thought himself cleverer than any yeerk. Certainly he’d be able to outwit humans. particularly during altercations, hork bajir and taxxon worried him more.

A few human controllers did merit notice even then. Prince Jake’s brother was an obvious liability. The esteemed Mr. Chapman held a position of authority over his fellow soldiers that made his yeerk quite dangerous, even if he didn’t realize who they were. That human secretary stood out like a bruised eyestalk fidgeting in the middle of Visser Three’s hork bajir warriors. 

He didn’t care much for them, but he still kept an eye open. A soldier always should.

^^^

Visser Three never used the public pool.

To be fair, it’s not like he could toss his host in the cells. He loaded that body up with every dangerous morph imaginable. He’d be a ticking time bomb detonating into any number of horrible things . If they doped him first it’d only take one bitter host to do some serious damage before the guards stopped them. Normally, hosts never laid hands on one another. Everyone was stuck together breathing each other's stale air. No reason to make it worse. 

Vissers got special privileges. Gina heard Visser One had a box she popped over her head. Didn’t ever have to leave her host. Visser Three might not have one of those bad boys, but he did have a private kiddy pool on the blade ship. He went in every three days with a couple guards and no one was allowed to bother him.

Gina relied on these twice weekly reprieves. She had thirty minutes to smoke or stretch or just sit under her desk and do deep breathing exercises.

Not today.

A line of controllers started at Gina’s desk and stretched out the door into the hall. They were in various states of disarray. Some stood with their arms clamped to their sides while others drunkenly swayed. 

They were dying for a kandrona fix. Literally

No one knew how they did it, but the Andalites found the Kandrona generator. Alone, this would suck. What made things worse was how the empire flipped when they heard. Apparently, andalites never found a way to track Kandrona waves before. If they figured out how, every hidden fort on every occupied planet had a brand new red bullseyes painted on its roofs. Of course, in their rush to move all their still functional generators, earth’s was on the backburner. If anyone wanted a dip in the pool they had to fly up to the mothership.

A hork bajir controller slammed his hands on Gina’s desk so hard her pens skittered off onto the floor. “If I die from Kandrona starvation I can promise you my host is going to gut every person in a ten foot radius. It will look like Visser Three with pregnancy cravings.”

“Hork bajir are vegetarians.”

“He hates you enough to give himself a stomach ache just to prove a point. And I do mean you personally.”

A taxxon reared up behind him. He was a ten foot long centipede dripping bile from his mouth. Gina and Mr. Vegetables both cringed. “You think you have it bad? Those of us stuck in these forms are already grappling with taxxon starvation instincts telling us to auto-cannibalize. Try to put yourself in our shoes. Now the taxxons aren’t the only ones starving, we are too.”

Gina held up her hands. “Which is why all taxxon hosts are getting triple rations at the cafeteria until the Kandrona shortage ends.”

“Shortage?” He hissed, “It’s a famine!”

“Sir, as we speak, the Visser’s,” Gina emphasized whose policy he was bitching about, “Office is working on a shuttle rotation to take everyone up to the Pool Ship. In the meantime, it isn’t like our pool here is completely empty.”

“It’s watered down.” The taxxon grumbled, but settled back on a sensible eight legs.

She pinned him with a glare like a beetle in a collector’s case. Then she cleared her throat. “Excuse me.”

The line continued to shout over each other.

“Excuse me.”

They only got louder. 

She shot a frantic glance to the guards at the door. 

He rolled his eyes. Despite the fact he didn’t respect her at all, he finally opened his beak. “Everyone be quiet! You’re in the Visser’s office. Act like it!”

Gina pushed a stack of papers to the edge of her desk. “We understand this is a trying time for everyone. However, we’re working very hard to keep things running. Everyone take a pamphlet and return it to me once you’ve filled it out. We’ll use the information to get everyone up poolside as soon as possible.”

A woman at the back raised her hand. 

“What’s your question?”

“Is there a timeframe estimate?”  
“It’s in your paperwork.” In very evasive wording.

Eventually everyone took their papers and left with only moderate grumbling. Gina was relieved no one tried to do the ten page packet in the room. They might have noticed it was all busywork she made up thirty minutes ago by pasting together doctor’s office intake templates she found in the Sharing network files.

“God,” She mumbled into her palm.

In her defense, it wasn’t like she was starving people on purpose. Some sub-vissers she could mention were using this as an excuse to keep their political enemies from feeding on time. Meanwhile, Gina was working on a boring, labor-intensive spreadsheet to make sure anyone on the brink of hunger fugue got shipped into orbit as soon as their human schedule allowed. She sent out five hundred messages this morning demanding they get out of their commitments and report to the shuttle hanger. 

The issue? There’s still five hundred more. There were too many yeerks and not enough seats on the bus, but she was trying her best. It was her idea to ship all non-essential, non-human personale up there on a semi-permanent basis until the new kandrona arrived.

Judging by the looks of that line, it still wasn’t enough.

Visser Three strutted through the door. Gina’s shoulders slumped.

<Regina, isn’t this your lunch break? I have a meeting. Make yourself scarce.>

She did. The cafeteria -- with all it’s smelly taxxon and grumbling voluntaries -- was an anonymous haven most afternoons. 

Gina wanted a blueberry smoothie. They’d put in a Jamba Juice recently and the line was normally way too long for her to get anything on her meager break. The pool was barren today. They’d been turning people away at the door to preserve as much Kandrona as possible. Visser Three’s unofficial policy was that anyone who died didn’t try hard enough to live.

The lunch room was empty. Every sound echoed. Whether she wanted or not, Gina eavesdropped on everyone’s whining.

“I feel like I’m going through withdrawal. I’m ready to chew someone’s face off.” A little boy, no more than seven, was complaining to a taxxon. His group was ahead of her in line.

“Don’t mention chewing.” He scratched at his lamprey mouth with a needle arm.

“Sorry. Blame the fugue, not me.” The boy stuck his tongue out.

“You’re only saying what we’re all thinking.” The woman standing behind him patted his head.

Gina twisted her necklace around her fingers. It was gold with a dangling diamond pendant. When she finally got to the front she put her smoothie on the Visser’s account. Next time, she’d get lunch delivered.

She took the long way out to avoid that kid’s table. She walked smack into Iniss 226. Blueberry smoothie splashed on his tie.

“Shit!” He wiped at it.

“Oh, sorry.” She wasn’t.

He grimaced, then his shoulders slumped. “Talk about making a bad day worse.”

“Tell me about it.” She took a swig from her drink. Not that much spilled. “Put your dry cleaning bill on the Sharing account. I’ll sign off on the receipt if you can’t.”

“It’s an ugly tie. My host’s daughter bought it for father’s day.”

He looked like garbage. He had massive bags under his eyes and a thin layer of stubble on his cheeks. His nails were tinted purple. Every single host she’d seen looked hungover, but he looked contagious. Maybe that was just how bad he smelled.

“Sit with me.”

Her break was forty five minutes. “Okay.”

They took a booth in the corner. It was under a heating vent.

He glared at her. She sucked obnoxiously at her smoothie. There was a chunk of berry stuck in the straw.

“How are you doing it?”

She swallowed. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the only one here who doesn’t look three steps from the fugue. How are you doing it?”

“I’m good at make up.”

He looked unimpressed. 

“Visser Three allows me to use his private pool.”

He looked startled, blinking rapidly, or maybe that was just the Kandrona hunger. Visser Three was touchy about his private property. Never has there been such a capitalist yeerk. “I suppose that makes sense. I apologize for the intrusion, ma’am.” 

She dragged her hand down her face. “I’m not going to report you for questioning me, Iniss 226. Look, are you that desperate to feed?”

“Obvious, if I’m willing to harass Visser Three’s secretary.” He was slouching so deeply his chin touched the table. “My scheduled pool time was ten hours ago.”

“Look,” She held up a hand. “Go talk to, um, what’s his name, the redheaded guy who signs people in and out of the shuttles when they arrive on Earth. I’ll call him and tell him to let you on the next one up to the pool ship. Don’t mention it to anyone, alright? The last thing we need is one of the few sensible sub-vissers a shriveled up husk.”

He straightened up. “Really?”

She was surprised it wasn’t in his power to demand a lift up there on his own. Then again, people only listened to her because her phone number popped up on the caller ID as Visser Three’s. Yeerks were rude when they thought they could get away with it. “Of course. Give me ten minutes to make the call then head straight over.”

She tossed her smoothie on her way out.

She made Iniss’s phone call just in time. Any later and she wouldn’t have the chance to catch that redhead before the shift change. Furthermore, she’d be too busy. Another tide of simmering resentment was brewing in her inbox. This time, thankfully, they couldn’t harass her in person. These messages were from the Pool Ship. Everybody up there was fat and happy. They didn’t have to worry about Kandrona rays running dry. Their issue was something much more mundane. 

They all wanted workman’s comp.

Gina never saw the Veleek, but she heard it was beyond gross. It had an oily, insect smell she noticed as soon as she arrived on the Pool Ship that persisted for over a week now. This writhing mass of fat mosquitos chewed up everything in its path and now people who survived it’s brief life wanted time to recuperate. 

They didn’t have people to spare. They were up to their eyestalks in half conscious hosts that needed to be stopped from shrieking about alien invasions. She was putting together a program that paired well fed yeerks who got maimed by the Veleek with rowdy freed hosts, but it was slow going. 

Most of them wanted their bodies repaired, not new ones with brains soaked in fugue stress hormones. They’d get fixed up. That was no problem. Yeerk science was fantastic. She stopped wearing contacts thanks to yeerk doctors. It just took more time than they had.

She chewed her pen cap. Maybe she should hit delete and pretend she never saw the messages. 

She shot a glance over her shoulder. Visser Three was doing who knew what on his personal computer. He was squinting hard. Did he need glasses? No way he’d admit if his eyes were failing. Come to think, she didn’t even know if he went to the doctor at all. He morphed enough that no injuries stuck.

Apparently workman’s compensation for yeerks requests required just as much nosy paperwork as it did on Earth. At least it wasn’t her department. They sent this junk to her because their injuries were from Visser Three’s schemes. She forwarded them to some faceless sucker in H.R. 

Or would it be Y.R.?

With her luck, chewing on this pencap was going to give her the flu. She grimaced and blotted her tongue with a tissue dug out of her desk drawer. Controllers didn’t wash their hands enough as is, but now everyone was also grossly sweaty.

A notification popped up on her screen. She wheeled her chair around. “Sir, Visser One is calling.”

He jerked upwards so fast his eyestalks bobbed. <Patch her through.>

She settled back down before:  
<It’s for you.>

“What?”

<Get over here, Regina!>

She didn’t need to be told twice. Not the way he was fuming. His tailblade hovered over his head. She tucked her chin.

<Greet Visser One.>

She flinched, turning around. “Hello, Visser One, ma’am.”

Visser One was sitting pretty in the captain’s chair of some space ship looking like Gina’s mom after she won at the state fair. Someone could have landed a bug fighter on her shoulder pads. “Good afternoon. I’m sorry to hear about your Kandrona ray malfunction.”

That was a polite way of putting it.

“Thank you, ma’am. We’re making do. Can I help you with something.”

“Perhaps. I’ve heard you’re quite helpful.”

She paused. Gina and Visser Three both leaned forward. She had them on her every word. Eventually Gina was forced to ask, “Is there anything in specific you need, ma’am?”

“To congratulate you.”

“Me?” Gina pointed at her own chest.

“Yes, you.” Edriss smiled. Her teeth were bleached white. “I heard what an exceptional job you’ve been doing in the wake of the Kandrona’s destruction. Current figures are far below the projected death toll. From what everyone is reporting, you’ve been busy at work getting people to a functioning pool. Casualties have been minimal.”

<Why are you congratulating her?> Visser Three puffed up his chest. <I’m the one running this invasion. Any victories are mine.>

“Please, Esplin.” Visser One rolled her eyes. “None of your hairbrained schemes on Earth have amounted to more than the loss of sixteen ships and innumerable taxxon. To my understanding, you killed off more yeerks trying to catch that swarm of flies on Saturn than those so called Andalite bandits.”

<How dare you!> He darted his tail at the screen. Gina threw herself out of his way.

“Get over yourself, you buffoon,” She snapped. “This is still a compliment. Your little secretary is getting promoted to a real rank!”

He dropped his tail. <What?>

“What?” Gina echoed.

“You heard me. For her service to the empire -- and thanks to a spat of assassinations on planet Leera -- she is being awarded the rank of Sub-Visser Ninety Nine.” She turned towards Gina, who cowered half out of frame. “As I said. Congratulations. Visser One, out.”

Gina’s calves failed and she fell on her ass.

Visser Three looked down at her, curious. <Interesting.>

“How could that work? I’m not in the system as a yeerk. I don’t even have a yeerk name. I’ve just been changing the subject whenever anyone asks.”

He nodded absently and put a hand on her head. <I’m curious as well. I haven’t yet gotten around to filing you under the name of a dead yeerk. As is, you shouldn’t be eligible for a rank. You do not technically exist.>

“Do you think she was… joking?”

<No. She would never call me unless the council demanded it.> He punched something into the computer, scrolled a bit, then tugged on her hair. <Look.>

She rose up on her knees. Her own face stared back from the monitor. She was wearing a Selena t-shirt. Her hair was frizzy. It was Akrass’s I.D. picture, but her name was listed as ‘REDACTED’. She was ranked Sub-Visser 99.

A promotion didn’t mean much in the grand scheme. She didn’t get a letterman jacket and no one wet themselves when she walked by. 

Once he got over his shock, Visser Three thought the whole business was beyond funny. His human, a Sub-Visser. Absurd. He’d love to see the look on Edriss’s face if she knew the truth. He threw them a two person party. Normally, Gina demurred whenever he offered her some of his wine. This time she swigged straight from the bottle. 

They ordered cake. He ate it in his human morph with his bare hands. Gina scraped her frosting off with a fork.

Maybe that disarmed her. It explained why she failed to anticipate Visser Three’s assassination attempt. Not one against her, of course. That would fall under domestic violence. 

The Andalite Bandits tried to kill him.

Gina was organizing the office supplies when a horde of human hosts tore through halls. It startled her so badly she knocked over the tower of paperclip boxes she built. Several popped open and spilled all over her desk. She pinched the bridge of her nose. 

It wasn’t hard to flag someone down. “What’s going on? Are the andalites attacking?”

The man stood at attention. “Sub-Visser Ninety-Nine, ma’am, the andalites have already attacked.”

“Excuse me?” She pressed back against the wall.

“No, not here, ma’am. They attacked Visser Three while he was out feeding his host.” He peered down the hallway. “He’s currently in the medical wing.”

“Wait, he is? What’s he doing there? Could he not morph?”

“No, ma’am, they bit him with a rattlesnake morph. A rattlesnake is a poisonous-”

“Oh my god, I know what a rattlesnake is!” She yanked at her hair. “Is he okay?”

“He escaped his host and was retrieved from a nearby creek. I believe he took a temporary host and has gone to his rooms to recover.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Gina booked it across the pool compound in record time. Her ankle almost gave out in her kitten heels.

The door opened to a pitch black room.

“Sir?” She called.

He shuffled in the dark. “Regina.”

He fumbled his syllables. She heard a click at the end of her name like a mouse trap snapping shut.

“Are you alright, sir?”

“Am I alright? Did you truly just ask that? Do I look alright, you fool?”

By hork bajir standards? Probably.

He was seven feet tall and covered in steak knives. His long neck sloped low, like he was uncomfortable being so tall. He tried to stay at andalite eye-level. His tail kicked up dust when it swept the floor. His skin was suctioned to muscle like he never took a sip of water in his life. He reminded Gina of the T-Rex from Jurassic park. His eyes were bloodshot.

“I asked you a question!”

“Yes?” She shrunk back towards the door.

Wrong answer. He chucked a book at her head.

“Get out! Come back when my real body is ready.”

“Yes, sir!” She hoped he heard her, because she didn’t turn back to check when she sprinted away. She only slowed down once she put three hallways between them. 

Her walk to the medical wing was sedate. Visser Three’s host wasn’t going anywhere. She’d seen what a rattlesnake could do to a horse. Everyone liked to claim they weren’t fatal to animals that big. That was sort of true, but when geriatric horses get sick they don’t usually recover. Visser Three’s host was at least old enough for him to complain about it.

She gave the guards a contemptuous look. She wasn’t actually sure she had clearance to barge in. Gina squared her shoulders and tried to project coldness. No one stopped her. Maybe thoughtspeak was contagious. 

The room was packed with medical personnel. They were laughing together, buddied up and reeking of booze. Yeerks don’t take a hippocratic oath. They all turned to face her.

“I’m here to check on Visser Three’s host.”

“Right this way, ma’am.” A woman motioned for her to come behind a curtained off area.

Someone pushed two beds together to hold him. It sagged dangerously. He was limp and his fur was matted. They dropped him in a position that was bound to give him a major crick in his neck. One leg was pulled out from under him for doctors to access. It was wrapped in thick white gauze and peppered with I.V.s. She never actually watched the treatment for a snake bite, but Gina wasn’t sure they needed all that.

His eyes were open just a sliver. She hoped they wouldn’t dry out. 

“He’s going to be fine,” The doctor said, “We were worried for a second given we don’t specialize in andalite filth, but he’s reacting quite well to treatment.”

“How long is it going to take?”  
“We want to watch him overnight just to make sure he’s in the clear.”

“Then get me a chair.”

“What? Why?” The doctor grimaced. “Don’t you have something better to do? He’s not waking up until we take him off the special K.”

“Visser Three told me to get him as soon as his host is ready. I’m not leaving until then.”

They stared each other down.

Gina spent the next three hours in a folding chair doing a crossword puzzle packet commandeered from the nurse’s sation. They were so desperate to be rid of a lurking Sub-Visser they let Visser Three have his body back early. His tripped over half limp legs the rest of the evening. 

^^^

There were no more hork bajir stationed at the door. 

People averted their eyes when Gina walked by. It wasn’t that impressive. She once watched a taxxon climb up an elevator shaft just to avoid Visser Three.

Speaking of him, he looked like shit. At first she thought he was recovering for his snake bite. He was shiftless, skulking when he wasn’t jumping at the bit to punish anyone who stepped out of line. His eyestalks wobbled when he walked.

Gina realized what was up when she saw him shouting at Iniss 226. He was starving. Visser Three hadn’t fed since someone dumped him in the pool while searching for a temporary host. He got his back and refused to leave. 

That was two and a half days ago. 

<Regina.>

“Sir?” She was rubber stamping several of Visser Three’s ex-guards transfer requests. Those left alive wanted out.

<We’re going to the blade ship.>

The halls were deserted. He peered into every doorway, craned forward to peak before he rounded corners. She walked a few paces behind him. The combined sound of his hooves and her heels warned anyone nearby to hide.

They reached the ship with no incident. It was empty too.

He locked the door behind him.

<I cannot count on my faithless guards. Everyone will move up a rank should I die. Betraying me is understandable, but obviously I can’t abide it.>

He fiddled with the control panel. No way he actually knew how to fly that thing. They were designed for taxxon pilots.

<You wouldn’t do such a thing.>

“No, sir.”  
<When you run away it’s pure self preservation. Acceptable, if pathetic.>

“Thank you.”

He slapped the back of her head so hard she bit her tongue. <Don’t get smart with me.>  
She tucked her chin. “Yes, sir.”

<Good.> He rubbed his palm against his face. <I need to feed in the Kandrona pool, but I have no trust in those feckless cowards to keep watch. You’re going to do it.>

“Me? Sir, I can’t fight. You just said so.”

<True, but I did not ask you to, did I? I will be vulnerable outside my host and I want someone equally weak to be my attendant. Follow me.> A new door opened out of a previously seamless wall. She’d never seen it before.

Inside was a tiny room, slightly bigger than a horse stall. A twenty gallon fish tank sat in one corner. A table with a few odds and ends was next to it. Was she about to get murdered? It would be just like him to wait months until her guard was down just to make killing her even more awful.

He picked up a syringe from the table. She was ready to cut and run until he slammed it into his own neck. He sagged -- seemed to recover -- and then his front legs gave out. He collapsed.

“Sir! Are you okay?”

<No, I just injected myself full of sedative, you idiot. Now, we don’t have much time until this host renders me completely incoherent. Come here.> He grabbed at her arm and missed. He settled for patting the ground next to him.

She crouched onto his level.

<I am going to exit my host. When I do, you are to deposit me in the portable Kandrona pool. Do not worry, my host with be far too incapacitated to morph.> He glared at her sleepily. <Not that he has much desire to raise a blade against you. Still, if he acts up there’s more sedatives on the counter. Don’t worry, there’s not enough to kill him.>

That was not reassuring. They locked human hosts in glorified dog crates, but couldn’t do that for an eight hundred pound killing machine. At least he’d probably be asleep for most of it, given how low Visser Three’s eyelids drooped. 

<I will signal you when I’m done.>

She cupped her hand under his ear. A few moments later, Visser Three exited his host. She closed her eyes, but still felt him slither into her palm. Were yeerks naturally so hot? Was it from cooking inside someone’s head? He was fever warm and solider than she expected. It was like a cut of cow tongue, all wet muscle. When she looked, he was underwhelming. Visser Three was a green slug.

A yeerk crawling out of her ear was like getting a tooth pulled with local anesthetic. The tooth wiggled when the dentist yanked at it, but the pain never came. Akrass pushed and popped things in her ear, but she never felt her eardrum rupture.

The andalite didn’t move.

She barely made it to the fish tank. Some kind of filter kept the surface churning. The water splashed the back of her hand. It was opaque. Once he slipped inside she couldn’t see him anymore. 

She turned around to find the andalite staring at her with bleary eyes.

“Hello.”

He cocked his head. She couldn’t call him it. She didn’t even call taxxons it. Plus, she’d be hard pressed to pretend he wasn’t some kind of man. Andalites weren’t like hork bajir. They built space ships.

“If you need anything, let me know. I’ll see what I can do.”

He squinted with all four eyes.

The tank bubbled.

<I owe you an apology.>

She nearly jumped out of her skin. “What?”

<I-> He stopped and made a strange noise in thought speak. Clearing his throat? <The activities Esplin subjects you to are-> Again, <Are unbecoming of an andalite. Of anyone. So I must sincerely extend my apologies.>

He wasn’t in a position to object when Visser Three decided something. She shook her head. Visser Three would see this conversation once he got back. “He doesn’t subject me to anything. I’m happy to be here. I’m lucky. If I didn’t want this I wouldn’t have agreed to it in the first place.”

He looked doubtful. Or drugged.

“What’s your name?” She blurted out. Anything to change the subject.

<Pardon?>

“Your name. You must have one. We’ve been spending a lot of time together, but no one has told me what your name is.”

He listed side to side. Hopefully he’d pass out. He shook his head. <My name is Alloran-Semitur-Corrass.>

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Regina Valentina Arroyo.”

<Regina-Valentina-Arroyo.> He said it funny. She heard the dashes.

“Yes.”

He nodded. He might just have been nodding off, though. Horse tranquilizers did that. Did he use ketamine?

<Is your head paining you?>

“Why would it?”

<Esplin hits you.>

Smacking her around didn’t even break the top ten list of most painful things Visser Three made her deal with on an average day. “Only when I deserve it. And he’s nice enough not to do it in public.”

<A man should not beat his woman at all. It’s dishonorable.>

“Again, I’m fine, Mr. Corrass.”

He was silent for a beat. <War Prince.>

She tilted her head. “Huh?”

<My official title is War Prince Alloran, if you feel you must use it. Given our circumstances, you do not need to.>

“Well then, I’m fine, War Prince Alloran.”

She was glad when he shut up. He made her nervous. He’d been Visser Three’s host for longer than she’d been alive. That he still talked was insane. A year was enough to leave some people catatonic. “Was that you who talked to me after the Dome Ship crashed?”

Great job keeping him quiet, Gina.

He wilted. <Yes. I should not have behaved so informally with you. I-> Again with the miserable thought speak noises. <I was not expecting to be so overwhelmed. It was inappropriate.>

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” She crossed her arms. The apologies made her grind her teeth. What did they do for her? This felt like masochism on his part.

A soft sound came from the fish tank. She spun on her heel.

Visser Three, Esplin, bobbed at the brim. He made the tiniest chirping noise. Of course. Yeerks echolocated. It sounded like a clicker used to train dogs, just inside human hearing. “It’s time to get infested, Alloran.”

<I know.>

He stopped speaking after that.

Carefully, Gina scooped Visser Three out of the water. He was cooler now. Less tense. She brushed her thumb over him. He felt fat enough to pop.

Water dripped between her fingers. It plinked on the floor, leaving a trail when she walked over to Alloran. 

She dropped to her knees. Her hands were clammy. Did the salt burn Visser Three’s awful little body? Tears cut dark blue paths down Allorans cheeks. Gina didn’t hesitate to bring Visser Three up to his ear. She made eye contact. He needed to know whose side she was on.

Gina and Visser Three stood at the same time. He stretched. The alien muscles of his torso moved under his fur. When she spread her fingers thick strands of Kandrona goo connected them.

He rested his hand on her lower back. <You did well. I expected nothing less. You’ll accompany me to the pool from now on.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And our adventure comes to an end. For now.
> 
> I'd like to thank my beloved co-author, roommate, and partner for conceptualizing this story with me. Thank you for reading Animorphs, sweetie.


End file.
